EXTRACT  FROM 

CAPTAIN  STORMFIELD'S 
VISIT  TO  HEAVE? 


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kkrv»  &*t*» 


iExirari  frnm 
QIaptain  Btoxmfulh^B 
XBit  tn  Sjeauen 

BY 

Mark    ®roattt 


NEW      YORK     AND      LONDON 
HARPER     &     BROTHERS 


Uniform  Edition  of 
MARK      TWAIN'S     WORKS 

Red  Cloth.     Crown  8vo. 

Christian  Science.       Illustrated.  $i-75 

The  American    Claimant,   Etc.  1.75 

A  Connecticut    Yankee.      Illustrated.  1.75 

Huckleberry  Finn.       Illustrated.  1.75 

Prince  and  Pauper.       Illustrated.  1.75 

Life  on  the   Mississippi.      Illustrated.  i-75 
The  Man  that    Corrupted    Hadleyburg, 

Etc.     Illustrated.  1 .  75 

Tom  Sawyer   Abroad,    Etc.      Illustrated.  1.7s 

Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer.      Illustrated.  1.7s 

Pudd'nhead    Wilson.       Illustrated.  1.75 

Sketches    New   and     Old.     Illustrated.  1.7s 

The  $30,000  Bequest,    Etc.     Illustrated.  1.7s 

Innocents   Abroad.       Illustrated.  2.00 

Roughing  It.       Illustrated.  2.00 

A  Tramp  Abroad.       Illustrated.  a. 00 

The  Gilded  Age.       Illustrated.  2.00 

Following  the    Equator.     Illustrated.  2.00 

Joan  of  Arc.      Illustrated.  2.50 

Other    Books  by  Mark  Twain 
Captain  Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaven. 

With  Fron  tisp  iece.  $  r .  00 

Editorial  Wild   Oats.      Illustrated.  1.00 

A  Horse's  Tale.      Illustrated.  1.00 

Extracts  from    Adam's  Diary.    Illustrated.  1.00 

Eve's  Diary.       Illustrated.  1.00 

A  Dog's  Tale.      Illustrated.  1.00 

The  Jumping    Frog.      Illustrated.  1.00 

How  to  Tell  a  Story,  Etc.  1.50 
A  Double-barrelled    Detective   Story. 

Illustrated.  1 .  50 
Is  Shakespeare  Dead?                              net  1.25 


Copyright,  1909,  by  Mark  Twain  Company. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America. 


T 


Extract  from 

Captain    Stormfield's 

Visit  to  Heaoen 


614833 


Extract  from  Captain 

Stormfield's  Visit 

to   Heaoen 


fELL,  when  I  had  been 
dead  about  thirty  years, 
I  begun  to  get  a  little 
anxious.  Mind  you,  I 
had  been  whizzing  through  space  all 
that  time,  like  a  comet.  Like  a 
comet!  Why,  Peters,  I  laid  over  the 
lot  of  them!  Of  course  there  warn't 
any  of  them  going  my  way,  as  a  steady 


6148 


Extract  from  Captain 

thing,  you  know,  because  they  travel 
in  a  long  circle  like  the  loop  of  a  lasso, 
whereas  I  was  pointed  as  straight  as 
a  dart  for  the  Hereafter;  but  I  hap- 
pened on  one  every  now  and  then 
that  was  going  my  way  for  an  hour 
or  so,  and  then  we  had  a  bit  of  a 
brush  together.  But  it  was  generally 
pretty  one-sided,  because  I  sailed  by 
them  the  same  as  if  they  were  stand- 
ing still.  An  ordinary  comet  don't 
make  more  than  about  200,000  miles 
a  minute.  Of  course  when  I  came 
across  one  of  that  sort — like  Encke's 
and  Halley's  comets,  for  instance — it 
warn't  anything  but  just  a  flash  and 
a  vanish,  you  see.  You  couldn't 
rightly  call  it  a  race.  It  was  as  if  the 
comet  was  a  gravel-train  and  I  was 
a  telegraph  despatch.     But  after   I 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

got  outside  of  our  astronomical  sys- 
tem, I  used  to  flush  a  comet  occasion- 
ally that  was  something  like.  We 
haven't  got  any  such  comets  —  ours 
don't  begin.  One  night  I  was  swing- 
ing along  at  a  good  round  gait,  every- 
thing taut  and  trim,  and  the  wind  in 
my  favor — I  judged  I  was  going  about 
a  million  miles  a  minute — it  might 
have  been  more,  it  couldn't  have 
been  less — when  I  flushed  a  most  un- 
commonly big  one  about  three  points 
off  my  starboard  bow.  By  his  stern 
lights  I  judged  he  was  bearing  about 
northeast  -  and  -  by  -  north  -  half  - 
east.  Well,  it  was  so  near  my  course 
that  I  wouldn't  throw  away  the 
chance;  so  I  fell  off  a  point,  steadied 
my  helm,  and  went  for  him.  You 
should  have  heard  me  whiz,  and  seen 
3 


Extract  from  Captain 

the  electric  fur  fly!  In  about  a 
minute  and  a  half  I  was  fringed  out 
with  an  electrical  nimbus  that  flamed 
around  for  miles  and  miles  and  lit 
up  all  space  like  broad  day.  The 
comet  was  burning  blue  in  the  dis- 
tance, like  a  sickly  torch,  when  I 
first  sighted  him,  but  he  begun  to 
grow  bigger  and  bigger  as  I  crept  up 
on  him.  I  slipped  up  on  him  so  fast 
that  when  I  had  gone  about  150,000,- 
000  miles  I  was  close  enough  to  be 
swallowed  up  in  the  phosphorescent 
glory  of  his  wake,  and  I  couldn't  see 
anything  for  the  glare.  Thinks  I, 
it  won't  do  to  run  into  him,  so  I 
shunted  to  one  side  and  tore  along. 
By  and  by  I  closed  up  abreast  of  his 
tail.  Do  you  know  what  it  was  like  ? 
It  was  like  a  gnat  closing  up  on  the 
4 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

continent  of  America.  I  forged  along. 
By  and  by  I  had  sailed  along  his  coast 
for  a  little  upwards  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty  million  miles,  and  then  I  could 
see  by  the  shape  of  him  that  I  hadn't 
even  got  up  to  his  waistband  yet. 
Why,  Peters,  we  don't  know  anything 
about  comets,  down  here.  If  you 
want  to  see  comets  that  are  comets, 
you've  got  to  go  outside  of  our  solar 
system — where  there's  room  for  them, 
you  understand.  My  friend,  I've 
seen  comets  out  there  that  couldn't 
even  lay  down  inside  the  orbits  of  our 
noblest  comets  without  their  tails 
hanging  over. 

Well,  I  boomed  along  another  hun- 
dred and  fifty  million  miles,  and  got 
up  abreast  his  shoulder,  as  you  may 
say.     I  was  feeling  pretty  fine,  I  tell 
5 


Extract  from  Captain 

you;  but  just  then  I  noticed  the 
officer  of  the  deck  come  to  the  side 
and  hoist  his  glass  in  my  direction. 
Straight  off  I  heard  him  sing  out — 

"  Below  there,  ahoy !  Shake  her  up, 
shake  her  up!  Heave  on  a  hundred 
million  billion  tons  of  brimstone!" 

"Ay— ay,  sir!" 

"Pipe  the  stabboard  watch!  All 
hands  on  deck!" 

"Ay— ay,  sir!" 

"  Send  two  hundred  thousand  mill- 
ion men  aloft  to  shake  out  royals  and 
sky-scrapers!" 

"Ay— ay,  sir!" 

"Hand  the  stuns'ls!  Hang  out 
every  rag  you've  got!  Clothe  her 
from  stem  to  rudder-post!" 

"Ay— ay,  sir!" 

In  about  a  second  I  begun  to  see 
6 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heau>en 

I'd  woke  up  a  pretty  ugly  customer, 
Peters.  In  less  than  ten  seconds 
that  comet  was  just  a  blazing  cloud 
of  red-hot  canvas.  It  was  piled  up 
into  the  heavens  clean  out  of  sight — 
the  old  thing  seemed  to  swell  out  and 
occupy  all  space;  the  sulphur  smoke 
from  the  furnaces — oh,  well,  nobody 
can  describe  the  way  it  rolled  and 
tumbled  up  into  the  skies,  and  nobody 
can  half  describe  the  way  it  smelt. 
Neither  can  anybody  begin  to  de- 
scribe the  way  that  monstrous  craft 
begun  to  crash  along.  And  such 
another  powwow  —  thousands  of 
bo's'n's  whistles  screaming  at  once, 
and  a  crew  like  the  populations  of  a 
hundred  thousand  worlds  like  ours 
all  swearing  at  once.  Well,  I  never 
heard  the  like  of  it  before. 
7 


Extract  from  Captain 

We  roared  and  thundered  along 
side  by  side,  both  doing  our  level  best, 
because  I'd  never  struck  a  comet 
before  that  could  lay  over  me,  and 
so  I  was  bound  to  beat  this  one  or 
break  something.  I  judged  I  had 
some  reputation  in  space,  and  I  cal- 
culated to  keep  it.  I  noticed  I  wasn't 
gaining  as  fast,  now,  as  I  was  before, 
but  still  I  was  gaining.  There  was 
a  power  of  excitement  on  board  the 
comet.  Upwards  of  a  hundred  billion 
passengers  swarmed  up  from  below 
and  rushed  to  the  side  and  begun  to 
bet  on  the  race.  Of  course  this 
careened  her  and  damaged  her  speed. 
My,  but  wasn't  the  mate  mad!  He 
jumped  at  that  crowd,  with  his 
trumpet  in  his  hand,  and  sung 
out — 

8 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

"  Amidships !  amidships,  you ! ' 

or  I'll  brain  the  last  idiot  of  you!" 

Well,  sir,  I  gained  and  gained,  lit- 
tle by  little,  till  at  last  I  went  skim- 
ming sweetly  by  the  magnificent  old 
conflagration's  nose.    By  this  time  the 
captain  of  the  comet  had  been  rousted 
out,  and  he  stood  there  in  the  red 
glare  for'ard,  by  the  mate,  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves and  slippers,  his  hair  all  rats' 
nests    and    one    suspender   hanging, 
and  how  sick  those  two  men  did  look! 
I  just  simply  couldn't  help  putting  my 
thumb  to  my  nose  as  I  glided  away 
and  singing  out: 

"Ta-ta!  ta-ta!     Any  word  to  send 
to  your  family?" 

Peters,  it  was  a  mistake.     Yes,  sir, 

1  The  captain  could  not  remember  what  this 
word  was.    He  said  it  was  in  a  foreign  tongue. 


Extract  from   Captain 

I've  often  regretted  that — it  was  a 
mistake.  You  see,  the  captain  had 
given  up  the  race,  but  that  remark 
was  too  tedious  for  him — he  couldn't 
stand  it.  He  turned  to  the  mate, 
and  says  he — 

"  Have  we  got  brimstone  enough  of 
our  own  to  make  the  trip?" 

"Yes,  sir." 
'  "Sure?" 

"Yes,  sir — more  than  enough." 

"How  much  have  we  got  in  cargo 
for  Satan?" 

"Eighteen  hundred  thousand  bill- 
ion quintillions  of  kazarks." 

"Very  well,  then,  let  his  boarders 
freeze  till  the  next  comet  comes. 
Lighten  ship!  Lively,  now,  lively, 
men!  Heave  the  whole  cargo  over- 
board!" 

10 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

Peters,  look  me  in  the  eye,  and  be 
calm.  I  found  out,  over  there,  that 
a  kazark  is  exactly  the  bulk  of  a 
hundred  and  sixty-nine  worlds  like 
ours!  They  hove  all  that  load  over- 
board. When  it  fell  it  wiped  out  a 
considerable  raft  of  stars  just  as  clean 
as  if  they'd  been  candles  and  some- 
body blowed  them  out.  As  for  the 
race,  that  was  at  an  end.  The 
minute  she  was  lightened  the  comet 
swung  along  by  me  the  same  as  if  I 
was  anchored.  The  captain  stood  on 
the  stern,  by  the  after-davits,  and 
put  his  thumb  to  his  nose  and  sung 
out — ■ 

"Ta-ta!  ta-ta!  Maybe  you've  got 
some  message  to  send  your  friends  in 
the  Everlasting  Tropics!" 

Then  he  hove  up  his  other  sus- 
2  ii 


Extract  from  Captain 

pender  and  started  for'ard,  and  inside, 
of  three-quarters  of  an  hour  his  craft 
was  only  a  pale  torch  again  in  the 
distance.  Yes,  it  was  a  mistake, 
Peters — that  remark  of  mine.  I 
don't  reckon  I'll  ever  get  over  being 
sorry  about  it.  I'd  'a'  beat  the  bully 
of  the  firmament  if  I'd  kept  my  mouth 
shut. 

But  I've  wandered  a  little  off  the 
track  of  my  tale;  I'll  get  back  on  my 
course  again.  Now  you  see  what  kind  t 
of  speed  I  was  making.  So,  as  I  said, 
when  I  had  been  tearing  along  this 
way  about  thirty  years  I  begun  to  get 
uneasy.  Oh,  it  was  pleasant  enough, 
with  a  good  deal  to  find  out,  but  then 
it  was  kind  of  lonesome,  you  know. 
Besides,  I  wanted  to  get  somewhere. 

13 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

I  hadn't  shipped  with  the  idea  of 
cruising  forever.  First  off,  I  liked 
the  delay,  because  I  judged  I  was 
going  to  fetch  up  in  pretty  warm 
quarters  when  I  got  through;  but 
towards  the  last  I  begun  to  feel  that 
I'd  rather  go  to  —  well,  most  any 
place,  so  as  to  finish  up  the  uncer- 
tainty. 

Well,  one  night — it  was  always 
night,  except  when  I  was  rushing  by 
some  star  that  was  occupying  the 
whole  universe  with  its  nre~and~its 
glare — light  enough  then,  of  course, 
but  I  necessarily  left  it  behind  in  a 
minute  or  two  and  plunged  into  a 
solid  week  of  darkness  again.  The 
stars  ain't  so  close  together  as  they 
look  to  be.  Where  was  I  ?  Oh  yes ; 
one  night  I  was  sailing  along,  when  I 
13 


Extract  from   Captain 

discovered  a  tremendous  long  row  of 
blinking  lights  away  on  the  horizon 
ahead.  As  I  approached,  they  begun 
to  tower  and  swell  and  look  like 
mighty  furnaces.  Says  I  to  myself — 
"By  George,  I've  arrived  at  last — 
and  at  the  wrong  place,  just  as  I 
expected!" 

'  Then  I  fainted.  I  don't  know  how 
long  I  was  insensible,  but  it  must  have 
been  a  good  while,  for,  when  I  came  to, 
the  darkness  was  all  gone  and  there 
was  the  loveliest  sunshine  and  the 
balmiest,  fragrantest  air  in  its  place. 
And  there  was  such  a  marvellous 
world  spread  out  before  me — such  a 
glowing,  beautiful,  bewitching  coun- 
try. The  things  I  took  for  furnaces 
were  gates,  miles  high,  made  all  of 
flashing  jewels,  and  they  pierced  a 
14 


Stormffield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

wall  of  solid  gold  that  you  couldn't 
see  the  top  of,  nor  yet  the  end  of, 
in  either  direction.  I  was  pointed 
straight  for  one  of  these  gates,  and 
a-coming  like  a  house  afire.  Now 
I  noticed  that  the  skies  were  black 
with  millions  of  people,  pointed  for 
those  gates.  What  a  roar  they  made, 
rushing  through  the  air !  The  ground 
was  as  thick  as  ants  with  people, 
too — billions  of  them,  I  judge. 

I  lit.  I  drifted  up  to  a  gate  with  a 
swarm  of  people,  and  when  it  was  my 
turn  the  head  clerk  says,  in  a  business- 
like way — 

"Well,  quick!  Where  are  you 
from?" 

"San  Francisco,"  says  I. 

"San  Fran — what?"  says  he. 

"San  Francisco." 


Extract  from  Captain 

He  scratched  his  head  and  looked 
puzzled,  then  he  says — 

"Is  it  a  planet?" 

By  George,  Peters,  think  of  it! 
"Planet?"  says  I;  "it's  a  city.  And 
moreover,  it's  one  of  the  biggest  and 
finest  and — " 

"There,  there!"  says  he,  "no  time 
here  for  conversation.  We  don't  deal 
in  cities  here.  Where  are  you  from 
in  a  general  way?" 

"Oh,"  I  says,  "I  beg  your  par- 
don. Put  me  down  for  Califor- 
nia." 

I  had  him  again,  Peters!  He  puz- 
zled a  second,  then  he  says,  sharp  and 
irritable — 

"  I  don't  know  any  such  planet — is 
it  a  constellation?" 

"  Oh,  my  goodness ! "  says  I.  "  Con- 
16 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

stellation,  says  you?  No  —  it's  a 
State." 

"  Man,  we  don't  deal  in  States  here. 
Will  you  tell  me  where  you  are  from 
in  general — at  large,  don't  you  under- 
stand?" 

"Oh,  now  I  get  your  idea,"  I  says. 
"I'm  from  America, — the  United 
States  of  America." 

Peters,  do  you  know  I  had  him 
again?  If  I  hadn't  I'm  a  clam!  His 
face  was  as  blank  as  a  target  after  a 
militia  shooting-match.  He  turned 
to  an  under  clerk  and  says — 

"Where  is  America?  What  is 
America?" 

The  under  clerk  answered  up 
prompt  and  says — 

"There  ain't  any  such  orb." 

"Orb?"  says  I.  "Why,  what  are 
i7 


Extract  from  Captain 

you  talking  about,  young  man?  It 
ain't  an  orb;  it's  a  country;  it's  a 
continent.  Columbus  discovered  it; 
I  reckon  likely  you've  heard  of  him, 
anyway.  America — why,  sir,  Amer- 
ica—" 

"Silence!"  says  the  head  clerk. 
"Once  for  all,  where — are — you — 
from?" 

"  Well,"  says  I,  "  I  don't  know  any- 
thing more  to  say — unless  I  lump 
things,  and  just  say  I'm  from  the 
world." 

"Ah,"  says  he,  brightening  up, 
"now  that's  something  like!  What 
world?" 

Peters,  he  had  me,  that  time.  I 
looked  at  him,  puzzled,  he  looked  at 
me,  worried.     Then  he  burst  out — 

"Come,  come,  what  world?" 
i8 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

Says  I,  "  Why,  the  world,  of  course." 

"The  world!"  he  says.  "H'm! 
there's  billions  of  them!  .  .  .  Next!" 

That  meant  for  me  to  stand  aside. 
I  done  so,  and  a  sky-blue  man  with 
seven  heads  and  only  one  leg  hopped 
into  my  place.  I  took  a  walk.  It 
just  occurred  to  me,  then,  that  all  the 
myriads  I  had  seen  swarming  to  that 
gate,  up  to  this  time,  were  just  like 
that  creature.  I  tried  to  run  across 
somebody  I  was  acquainted  with,  but 
they  were  out  of  acquaintances  of 
mine  just  then.  So  I  thought  the 
thing  all  over  and  finally  sidled  back 
there  pretty  meek  and  feeling  rather 
stumped,  as  you  may  say. 

"Well?"  said  the  head  clerk. 

"Well,  sir,"  I  says,  pretty  humble, 
"I  don't  seem  to  make  out  which 
19 


Extract  from  Captain 

world  it  is  I'm  from.  But  you  may- 
know  it  from  this — it's  the  one  the 
Saviour  saved." 

He  bent  his  head  at  the  Name. 
Then  he  says,  gently — 

"The  worlds  He  has  saved  are  like 
to  the  gates  of  heaven  in  number — 
none  can  count  them.  What  astro- 
nomical system  is  your  world  in? — 
perhaps  that  may  assist." 

"It's  the  one  that  has  the  sun  in 
it — and  the  moon — and  Mars" — he 
shook  his  head  at  each  name — hadn't 
ever  heard  of  them,  you  see — "and 
Neptune  —  and  Uranus  —  and  Jupi- 
ter—" 

"Hold  on!"  says  he— "hold  on  a 

minute!    Jupiter  .   .   .  Jupiter  .   .   . 

Seems  to  me  we  had  a  man  from  there 

eight  or  nine  hundred  years  ago — but 

20 


Stormfield's  Visit  to   HeaDen 

people  from  that  system  very  seldom 
enter  by  this  gate."  All  of  a  sudden 
he  begun  to  look  me  so  straight  in  the 
eye  that  I  thought  he  was  going  to 
bore  through  me.  Then  he  says,  very 
deliberate,  "Did  you  come  straight 
here  from  your  system?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  I  says — but  I  blushed 
the  least  little  bit  in  the  world  when 
I  said  it. 

He  looked  at  me  very  stern,  and 
says — 

"That  is  not  true;  and  this  is  not 
the  place  for  prevarication.  You 
wandered  from  your  course.  How 
did  that  happen?" 

Says  I,  blushing  again — 

"I'm  sorry,  and  I  take  back  what 
I  said,  and  confess.  I  raced  a  little 
with  a  comet   one   day — only  just 

21 


Extract  from   Captain 

the  least  little  bit — only  the  tiniest 
lit—" 

"So — so,"  says  he — and  without 
any  sugar  in  his  voice  to  speak  of. 

I  went  on,  and  says — 

"But  I  only  fell  off  just  a  bare 
point,  and  I  went  right  back  on  my 
course  again  the  minute  the  race  was 
over." 

"  No  matter — that  divergence  has 
made  all  this  trouble.  It  has  brought 
you  to  a  gate  that  is  billions  of 
leagues  from  the  right  one.  If  you 
had  gone  to  your  own  gate  they 
would  have  known  all  about  your 
world  at  once  and  there  would  have 
been  no  delay.  But  we  will  try  to 
accommodate  you."  He  turned  to 
an  under  clerk  and  says — 

"What  system  is  Jupiter  in?" 

22 


Stormffield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

u  I  don't  remember,  sir,  but  I  think 
there  is  such  a  planet  in  one  of  the 
little  new  systems  away  out  in  one 
of  the  thinly  worlded  corners  of  the 
universe.     I  will  see." 

He  got  a  balloon  and  sailed  up  and 
up  and  up,  in  front  of  a  map  that  was 
as  big  as  Rhode  Island.  He  went  on 
up  till  he  was  out  of  sight,  and  by  and 
by  he  came  down  and  got  something 
to  eat  and  went  up  again.  To  cut 
a  long  story  short,  he  kept  on  doing 
this  for  a  day  or  two,  and  finally  he 
came  down  and  said  he  thought  he 
had  found  that  solar  system,  but  it 
might  be  fly-specks.  So  he  got  a 
microscope  and  went  back.  It  turned 
out  better  than  he  feared.  He  had 
rousted  out  our  system,  sure  enough. 
He  got  me  to  describe  our  planet  and 
23 


Extract  from  Captain 

its  distance  from  the  sun,  and  then 
he  says  to  his  chief — 

"Oh,  I  know  the  one  he  means, 
now,  sir.  It  is  on  the  map.  It  is 
called  the  Wart." 

Says  I  to  myself,  "Young  man,  it 
wouldn't  be  wholesome  for  you  to  go 
down  there  and  call  it  the  Wart."      , 

Well,  they  let  me  in,  then,  and  told 
me  I  was  safe  forever  and  wouldn't 
have  any  more  trouble. 

Then  they  turned  from  me  and 
went  on  with  their  work,  the  same 
as  if  they  considered  my  case  all  com- 
plete and  shipshape.  I  was  a  good 
deal  surprised  at  this,  but  I  was 
diffident  about  speaking  up  and  re- 
minding them.  I  did  so  hate  to  do 
it,  you  know;  it  seemed  a  pity  to 
bother  them,  they  had  so  much  on 
24 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

their    hands.     Twice    I    thought    I 
would  give  up  and  let  the  thing  go; 
so  twice  I  started  to  leave,  but  im- 
mediately I  thought  what  a  figure  I 
should  cut  stepping  out  amongst  the 
redeemed   in   such   a  rig,    and   that 
made   me  hang  back    and   come  to 
anchor  again.     People  got  to  eying 
me— clerks,     you    know— wondering 
why    I    didn't    get    under   way.     I 
couldn't  stand  this  long— it  was  too 
uncomfortable.     So  at  last  I  plucked 
up  courage  and  tipped  the  head  clerk 
a  signal.     He  says— 

"What!  you  here  yet?  What's 
wanting?" 

Says  I,  in  a  low  voice  and  very  con- 
fidential, making  a  trumpet  with  my 
hands  at  his  ear — 

"I  beg  pardon,  and  you  mustn't 

25 


Extract  from  Captain 

mind  my  reminding  you,  and  seeming 
to  meddle,  but  hain't  you  forgot  some- 
thing?" 

He  studied  a  second,  and  says — 

"Forgot  something?  .  .  .  No,  not 
that  I  know  of." 

"Think,"  says  I. 

He  thought.     Then  he  says — 
'    "No,  I  can't  seem  to  have  forgot 
anything.     What  is  it?" 

"Look  at  me,"  says  I,  "look  me 
all  over." 

He  done  it. 

"Well?"  says  he. 
-  "Well,"  says  I,  "you  don't  no- 
tice anything?  If  I  branched  out 
amongst  the  elect  looking  like  this, 
wouldn't  I  attract  considerable  at- 
tention?— wouldn't  I  be  a  little  con- 
spicuous?" 

26 


Stormfield's  Visit  to   Hcaoen 

"Well,"  he  says,  "I  don't  see  any- 
thing the  matter.  What  do  you 
lack?" 

"  Lack !  Why,  I  lack  my  harp,  and 
my  wreath,  and  my  halo,  and  my 
hymn-book,  and  my  palm  branch — 
I  lack  everything  that  a  body  nat- 
urally requires  up  here,  my  friend." 

Puzzled  ?  Peters,  he  was  the  worst 
puzzled  man  you  ever  saw.  Finally 
he  says — 

"Well,  you  seem  to  be  a  curiosity 
every  way  a  body  takes  you.  I  never 
heard  of  these  things  before." 

I  looked  at  the  man  awhile  in  solid 
astonishment;  then  I  says — 

"Now,  I  hope  you  don't  take  it 

as  an  offence,  for  I  don't  mean  any, 

but  really,  for  a  man  that  has  been  in 

the  Kingdom  as  long  as  I  reckon  you 

27 


Extract  from   Captain 

have,  you  do  seem  to  know  powerful 
little  about  its  customs." 

"  Its  customs! "  says  he.  "  Heaven 
is  a  large  place,  good  friend.  Large 
empires  have  many  and  diverse  cus- 
toms. Even  small  dominions  have, 
as  you  doubtless  know  by  what  you 
have  seen  of  the  matter  on  a  small 
scale  in  the  Wart.  How  can  you 
imagine  I  could  ever  learn  the  varied 
customs  of  the  countless  kingdoms  of 
heaven?  It  makes  my  head  ache  to 
think  of  it.  I  know  the  customs  that 
prevail  in  those  portions  inhabited  by 
peoples  that  are  appointed  to  enter 
by  my  own  gate — and  hark  ye,  that  is 
quite  enough  knowledge  for  one  in- 
dividual to  try  to  pack  into  his  head 
in  the  thirty-seven  millions  of  years 
I  have  devoted  night  and  day  to  that 
28 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

study.  But  the  idea  of  learning  the 
customs  of  the  whole  appalling  ex- 
panse of  heaven — O  man,  how  in- 
sanely you  talk!  Now  I  don't  doubt 
that  this  odd  costume  you  talk  about 
is  the  fashion  in  that  district  of  heaven 
you  belong  to,  but  you  won't  be  con- 
spicuous in  this  section  without  it." 

I  felt  all  right,  if  that  was  the  case, 
so  I  bade  him  good-day  and  left.  All 
day  I  walked  towards  the  far  end  of  a 
prodigious  hall  of  the  office,  hoping  to 
come  out  into  heaven  any  moment, 
but  it  was  a  mistake.  That  hall  was 
built  on  the  general  heavenly  plan — 
it  naturally  couldn't  be  small.  At 
last  I  got  so  tired  I  couldn't  go  any 
farther;  so  I  sat  down  to  rest,  and 
begun  to  tackle  the  queerest  sort  of 
strangers  and  ask  for  information; 
29 


Extract  from  Captain 

but  I  didn't  get  any;  they  couldn't 
understand  my  language,  and  I  could 
not  understand  theirs.  I  got  dread- 
fully lonesome.  I  was  so  down- 
hearted and  homesick  I  wished  a 
hundred  times  I  never  had  died.  I 
turned  back,  of  course.  About  noon 
next  day,  I  got  back  at  last  and  was 
on  hand  at  the  booking-office  once 
more.     Says  I  to  the  head  clerk — 

"  I  begin  to  see  that  a  man's  got  to 
be  in  his  own  heaven  to  be  happy." 

' '  Perfectly  correct, ' '  says  he .  "  Did 
you  imagine  the  same  heaven  would 
suit  all  sorts  of  men?" 

"Well,  I  had  that  idea — but  I  see 
the  foolishness  of  it.  Which  way  am 
I  to  go  to  get  to  my  district?" 

He  called  the  under  clerk  that  had 
examined  the  map,  and  he  gave  me 
30 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

general  directions.     I   thanked   him 
and  started;  but  he  says — 

"Wait  a  minute;  it  is  millions  of 
leagues  from  here.  Go  outside  and 
stand  on  that  red  wishing-carpet; 
shut  your  eyes,  hold  your  breath, 
and  wish  yourself  there." 

"I'm  much  obliged,"  says  I;  "  why 
didn't  you  dart  me  through  when  I 
first  arrived?" 

"We  have  a  good  deal  to  think  of 
here;  it  was  your  place  to  think  of  it 
and  ask  for  it.  Good-by;  we  probably 
sha'n't  see  you  in  this  region  for  a 
thousand  centuries  or  so." 

"In  that  case,  o  revoor,"  says  I. 

I  hopped  onto  the  carpet  and  held 

my  breath  and   shut  my  eyes  and 

wished  I  was  in  the  booking-office  of 

my    own    section.     The    very    next 

31 


Extract  from  Captain 

instant  a  voice  I  knew  sung  out  in  a 
business  kind  of  a  way — 

"A  harp  and  a  hymn-book,  pair  of 
wings  and  a  halo,  size  13,  for  Cap'n 
Eli  Stormfield,  of  San  Francisco!— 
make  him  out  a  clean  bill  of  health, 
and  let  him  in." 

I  opened  my  eyes.  Sure  enough, 
it  was  a  Pi  Ute  Injun  I  used  to  know 
in  Tulare  County;  mighty  good  fel- 
low— I  remembered  being  at  his  fu- 
neral, which  consisted  of  him  being 
burnt  and  the  other  Injuns  gauming 
their  faces  with  his  ashes  and  howling 
like  wildcats.  He  was  powerful  glad 
to  see  me,  and  you  may  make  up  your 
mind  I  was  just  as  glad  to  see  him, 
and  feel  that  I  was  in  the  right  kind 
of  a  heaven  at  last. 

Just  as  far  as  your  eye  could  reach, 
32 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

there  was  swarms  of  clerks,  running 
and  bustling  around,  tricking  out 
thousands  of  Yanks  and  Mexicans 
and  English  and  A-rabs,  and  all  sorts 
of  people  in  their  new  outfits;  and 
when  they  gave  me  my  kit  and  I 
put  on  my  halo  and  took  a  look  in 
the  glass,  I  could  have  jumped  over 
a  house  for  joy,  I  was  so  happy. 
"  Now  this  is  something  like!"  says  I. 
"Now,"  says  I,  "I'm  all  right — show 
me  a  cloud." 

Inside  of  fifteen  minutes  I  was  a 
mile  on  my  way  towards  the  cloud- 
banks  and  about  a  million  people 
along  with  me.  Most  of  us  tried  to 
fly,  but  some  got  crippled  and  no- 
body made  a  success  of  it.  So  we 
concluded  to  walk,  for  the  present, 
till  we  had  had  some  wing  practice. 
33 


Extract  from  Captain 

We  begun  to  meet  swarms  of  folks 
who  were  coming  back.  Some  had 
harps  and  nothing  else;  some  had 
hymn-books  and  nothing  else;  some 
had  nothing  at  all ;  all  of  them  looked 
meek  and  uncomfortable;  one  young 
fellow  hadn't  anything  left  but  his 
halo,  and  he  was  carrying  that  in  his 
hand;  all  of  a  sudden  he  offered  it  to 
me  and  says — 

"  Will  ycu  hold  it  for  me  a  minute  ?" 
Then  he  disappeared  in  the  crowd. 
I  went  on.  A  woman  asked  me  to 
hold  her  palm  branch,  and  then  she 
disappeared.  A  girl  got  me  to  hold 
her  harp  for  her,  and  by  George,  she 
disappeared;  and  so  on  and  so  on, 
till  I  was  about  loaded  down  to  the 
guards.  Then  comes  a  smiling  old 
gentleman  and  asked  me  to  hold  his 
34 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

things.  I  swabbed  off  the  perspira- 
tion and  says,  pretty  tart — 

"I'll  have  to  get  you  to  excuse  me, 
my  friend, — I  ain't  no  hat- rack." 

About  this  time  I  begun  to  run 
across  piles  of  those  traps,  lying  in 
the  road.  I  just  quietly  dumped  my 
extra  cargo  along  with  them.  I 
looked  around,  and,  Peters,  that 
whole  nation  that  was  following  me 
were  loaded  down  the  same  as  I'd 
been.  The  return  crowd  had  got 
them  to  hold  their  things  a  minute, 
you  see.  They  all  dumped  their  loads, 
too,  and  we  went  on. 

When  I  found  myself  perched  on  a 
cloud,  with  a  million  other  people,  I 
never  felt  so  good  in  my  life.  Says  I, 
"  Now  this  is  according  to  the  prom- 
ises; I've  been  having  my  doubts,  but 
35 


Extract  from  Captain 

now  I  am  in  heaven,  sure  enough."  I 
gave  my  palm  branch  a  wave  or  two, 
for  luck,  and  then  I  tautened  up  my 
harp -strings  and  struck  in.  Well, 
Peters,  you  can't  imagine  anything 
like  the  row  we  made.  It  was  grand 
to  listen  to,  and  made  a  body  thrill 
all  over,  but  there  was  considerable 
many  tunes  going  on  at  once,  and 
that  was  a  drawback  to  the  harmony, 
you  understand ;  and  then  there  was 
a  lot  of  Injun  tribes,  and  they  kept  up 
such  another  war-whooping  that  they 
kind  of  took  the  tuck  out  of  the 
music.  By  and  by  I  quit  performing, 
and  judged  I'd  take  a  rest.  There  was 
quite  a  nice  mild  old  gentleman  sitting 
next  me,  and  I  noticed  he  didn't  take 
a  hand;  I  encouraged  him,  but  he 
said  he  was  naturally  bashful,  and 
36 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

was  afraid  to  try  before  so  many 
people.  By  and  by  the  old  gentle- 
man said  he  never  could  seem  to  en- 
joy music  somehow.  The  fact  was, 
I  was  beginning  to  feel  the  same  way ; 
but  I  didn't  say  anything.  Him  and 
I  had  a  considerable  long  silence,  then, 
but  of  course  it  warn't  noticeable  in 
that  place.  After  about  sixteen  or 
seventeen  hours,  during  which  I 
played  and  sung  a  little,  now  and 
then — always  the  same  tune,  because 
I  didn't  know  any  other — I  laid  down 
my  harp  and  begun  to  fan  myself  with 
my  palm  branch.  Then  we  both  got 
to  sighing  pretty  regular.  Finally, 
says  he — 

"  Don't  you  know  any  tune  but  the 
one  you've  been  pegging  at  all  day?" 

"Not  another  blessed  one,"  says  I. 
37 


Extract  from   Captain 

"  Don't  you  reckon  you  could  learn 
another  one?"  says  he. 

"  Never,"  says  I ;  "  I've  tried  to,  but 
I  couldn't  manage  it." 

"It's  a  long  time  to  hang  to  the 
one — eternity,  you  know." 

"Don't  break  my  heart,"  says  I; 
"I'm  getting  low-spirited  enough 
already." 

1    After   another   long   silence,    says 
he— 

"Are  you  glad  to  be  here?" 

Says  I,  "Old  man,  I'll  be  frank 
with  you.  This  ain't  just  as  near  my 
idea  of  bliss  as  I  thought  it  was  going 
to  be,  when  I  used  to  go  to  church." 

Says  he,  "What  do  you  say  to 
knocking  off  and  calling  it  half  a 
day?" 

"That's   me,"   says   I.     "I   never 
38 


Stormfield's  Visit  to   Heaoen 

wanted  to  get  off  watch  so  bad  in  my 
life." 

So  we  started.  Millions  were  com- 
ing to  the  cloud-bank  all  the  time, 
happy  and  hosannahing;  millions 
were  leaving  it  all  the  time,  looking 
mighty  quiet,  I  tell  you.  We  laid  for 
the  new-comers,  and  pretty  soon  I'd 
got  them  to  hold  all  my  things  a 
minute,  and  then  I  was  a  free  man 
again  and  most  outrageously  happy. 
Just  then  I  ran  across  old  Sam 
Bartlett,  who  had  been  dead  a  long 
time,  and  stopped  to  have  a  talk  with 
him.     Says  I — 

"  Now  tell  me — is  this  to  go  on  for- 
ever? Ain't  there  anything  else  for 
a  change?" 

Says  he — 

"I'll  set  you  right  on  that  point 
39 


Extract   from  Captain 

very  quick.  People  take  the  figura- 
tive language  of  the  Bible  and  the 
allegories  for  literal,  and  the  first 
thing  they  ask  for  when  they  get  here 
is  a  halo  and  a  harp,  and  so  on. 
Nothing  that's  harmless  and  reason- 
able is  refused  a  body  here,  if  he  asks 
it  in  the  right  spirit.  So  they  are 
outfitted  with  these  things  without  a 
word.  They  go  and  sing  and  play 
just  about  one  day,  and  that's  the 
last  you'll  ever  see  them  in  the  choir. 
They  don't  need  anybody  to  tell  them 
that  that  sort  of  thing  wouldn't  make 
a  heaven — at  least  not  a  heaven  that 
a  sane  man  could  stand  a  week  and 
remain  sane.  That  cloud  -  bank  is 
placed  where  the  noise  can't  disturb 
the  old  inhabitants,  and  so  there  ain't 
any  harm  in  letting  everybody  get  up 
40 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

there  and  cure  himself  as  soon  as  he 
comes. 

"Now  you  just  remember  this— 
heaven  is  as  blissful  and  lovely  as  it 
can  be;  but  it's  just  the  busiest  place 
you  ever  heard  of.     There  ain't  any 
idle  people  here  after  the  first  day. 
Singing    hymns    and    waving    palm 
branches  through  all  eternity  is  pretty 
when  you  hear  about  it  in  the  pulpit, 
but  it's  as  poor  a  way  to  put  in  valu- 
able time  as  a  body  could  contrive. 
It    would    just    make    a   heaven    of 
warbling  ignoramuses,  don't  you  see? 
Eternal  Rest  sounds  comforting  in  the 
pulpit,  too.     Well,  you  try  it  once, 
and  see  how  heavy  time  will  hang 
on  your  hands.     Why,  Stormfield,  a 
man  like  you,  that  had  been  active 
and  stirring  all  his  life,  would  go  mad 
4i 


Extract  from  Captain 

in  six  months  in  a  heaven  where  he 
hadn't  anything  to  do.  Heaven  is  the 
very  last  place  to  come  to  rest  in, — 
and  don't  you  be  afraid  to  bet  on 
that!" 

Says  I — 

"Sam,  I'm  as  glad  to  hear  it  as  I 
thought  I'd  be  sorry.  I'm  glad  I 
come,  now." 

Says  he — 

"Cap'n,  ain't  you  pretty  physically 
tired?" 

Says  I — 

"Sam,  it  ain't  any  name  for  it! 
I'm  dog-tired." 

i  "Just  so — just  so.  You've  earned 
a  good  sleep,  and  you'll  get  it. 
You've  earned  a  good  appetite,  and 
you'll  enjoy  your  dinner.  It's  the 
same  here  as  it  is  on  earth — you've 
42 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

got  to  earn  a  thing,  square  and  honest, 
before  you  enjoy  it.  You  can't  en- 
joy first  and  earn  afterwards.  But 
there's  this  difference,  here:  you  can 
choose  your  own  occupation,  and  all 
the  powers  of  heaven  will  be  put 
forth  to  help  you  make  a  success  of  it, 
if  you  do  your  level  best.  The  shoe- 
maker on  earth  that  had  the  soul  of 
a  poet  in  him  won't  have  to  make 
shoes  here." 

"Now  that's  all  reasonable  and 
right,"  says  I.  "  Plenty  of  work,  and 
the  kind  you  hanker  after;  no  more 
pain,  no  more  suffering — " 

"Oh,  hold  on;  there's  plenty  of 
pain  here— but  it  don't  kill.  There's 
plenty  of  suffering  here,  but  it  don't 
last.  You  see,  happiness  ain't  a 
thing  in  itself  —  it's  only  a  contrast 
43 


Extract  from  Captain 

with  something  that  ain't  pleasant. 
That's  all  it  is.  There  ain't  a  thing 
you  can  mention  that  is  happiness  in 
its  own  self — it's  only  so  by  contrast 
with  the  other  thing.  And  so,  as 
soon  as  the  novelty  is  over  and  the 
force  of  the  contrast  dulled,  it  ain't 
happiness  any  longer,  and  you  have 
to  get  something  fresh.  Well,  there's 
plenty  of  pain  and  suffering  in  heaven 
— consequently  there's  plenty  of  con- 
trasts, and  just  no  end  of  happiness." 
Says  I,  "It's  the  sensiblest  heaven 
I've  heard  of  yet,  Sam,  though  it's 
about  as  different  from  the  one  I  was 
brought  up  on  as  a  live  princess  is 
different  from  her  own  wax  figger." 

Along  in  the  first  months  I  knocked 
around  about  the  Kingdom,  making 
44 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

friends  and  looking  at  the  country, 
and  finally  settled  down  in  a  pretty 
likely  region,  to  have  a  rest  before 
taking  another  start.  I  went  on 
making  acquaintances  and  gathering 
up  information.  I  had  a  good  deal 
of  talk  with  an  old  bald-headed  angel 
by  the  name  of  Sandy  McWilliams. 
He  was  from  somewhere  in  New 
Jersey.  I  went  about  with  him,  con- 
siderable. We  used  to  lay  around, 
warm  afternoons,  in  the  shade  of  a 
rock,  on  some  meadow- ground  that 
was  pretty  high  and  out  of  the 
marshy  slush  of  his  cranberry-farm, 
and  there  we  used  to  talk  about  all 
kinds  of  things,  and  smoke  pipes. 
One  day,  says  I — 

"About  how  old   might  you  bef 
Sandy?" 

45 


Extract  from  Captain 

"Seventy-two." 

"  I  judged  so.  How  long  you  been 
in  heaven?" 

"Twenty-seven  years,  come  Christ- 
mas." 

"  How  old  was  you  when  you  come 
up?" 

"Why,  seventy-two,  of  course." 

"You  can't  mean  it!" 

"Why  can't  I  mean  it?" 

"Because,  if  you  was  seventy-two 
then,  you  are  naturally  ninety-nine 
now." 

"  No,  but  I  ain't.  I  stay  the  same 
age  I  was  when  I  come." 

"Well,"  says  I,  "come  to  think, 
there's  something  just  here  that  I  want 
to  ask  about.  Down  below,  I  always 
had  an  idea  that  in  heaven  we  would 
all  be  young,  and  bright,  and  spry." 
46 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

"Well,  you  can  be  young  if  you 
want  to.     You've  only  got  to  wish." 

"  Well,  then,  why  didn't  you  wish  ?" 

"I  did.  They  all  do.  You'll  try 
it,  some  day,  like  enough;  but  you'll 
get  tired  of  the  change  pretty  soon." 

"Why?" 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you.  Now  you've 
always  been  a  sailor ;  did  you  ever  try 
some  other  business?" 

"  Yes,  I  tried  keeping  grocery,  once, 
up  in  the  mines ;  but  I  couldn't  stand 
it;  it  was  too  dull — no  stir,  no  storm, 
no  life  about  it ;  it  was  like  being  part 
dead  and  part  alive,  both  at  the  same 
time.  I  wanted  to  be  one  thing  or 
t'other.  I  shut  up  shop  pretty  quick 
and  went  to  sea." 

"  That's  it.  Grocery  people  like  it, 
but  you  couldn't.  You  see  you 
47 


Extract  from  Captain 

wasn't  used  to  it.  Well,  I  wasn't 
used  to  being  young,  and  I  couldn't 
seem  to  take  any  interest  in  it.  I 
was  strong,  and  handsome,  and  had 
curly  hair,  —  yes,  and  wings,  too ! — ■ 
gay  wings  like  a  butterfly.  I  went  to 
picnics  and  dances  and  parties  with 
the  fellows,  and  tried  to  carry  on  and 
talk  nonsense  with  the  girls,  but  it 
wasn't  any  use ;  I  couldn't  take  to  it — 
fact  is,  it  was  an  awful  bore.  What  I 
wanted  was  early  to  bed  and  early  to 
rise,  and  something  to  do;  and  when 
my  work  was  done,  I  wanted  to  sit 
quiet,  and  smoke  and  think — not  tear 
around  with  a  parcel  of  giddy  young 
kids.  You  can't  think  what  I  suf- 
fered whilst  I  was  young." 
"How  long  was  you  young?" 
"  Only  two  weeks.  That  was  plenty 
48 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

for  me.  Laws,  I  was  so  lonesome! 
You  see,  I  was  full  of  the  knowledge 
and  experience  of  seventy-two  years; 
the  deepest  subject  those  young  folks 
could  strike  was  only  a-b-c  to  me. 
And  to  hear  them  argue — oh,  my! 
it  would  have  been  funny,  if  it  hadn't 
been  so  pitiful.  Well,  I  was  so 
hungry  for  the  ways  and  the  sober 
talk  I  was  used  to,  that  I  tried  to  ring 
in  with  the  old  people,  but  they 
wouldn't  have  it.  They  considered 
me  a  conceited  young  upstart,  and 
gave  me  the  cold  shoulder.  Two 
weeks  was  a-plenty  for  me.  I  was 
glad  to  get  back  my  bald  head  again, 
and  my  pipe,  and  my  old  drowsy  re- 
flections in  the  shade  of  a  rock  or  a 
tree." 

"Well,"  says  I,  "do  you  mean  to 
49 


Extract  from  Captain 

say  you're  going  to  stand  still  at 
seventy-two,  forever  ? ' ' 

"  I  don't  know,  and  I  ain't  par- 
ticular. But  I  ain't  going  to  drop 
back  to  twenty-five  any  more — I 
know  that,  mighty  well.  I  know  a 
sight  more  than  I  did  twenty-seven 
years  ago,  and  I  enjoy  learning,  all 
the  time,  but  I  don't  seem  to  get  any 
older.  That  is,  bodily — my  mind 
gets  older,  and  stronger,  and  better 
seasoned,  and  more  satisfactory." 

Says  I,  "If  a  man  comes  here  at 
ninety,  don't  lie  ever  set  himself 
back?" 

"  Of  course  he  does.  He  sets  him- 
self back  to  fourteen ;  tries  it  a  couple 
of  hours,  and  feels  like  a  fool;  sets 
himself  forward  to  twenty;  it  ain't 
much  improvement ;  tries  thirty,  fifty, 
So 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

eighty,  and  finally  ninety — finds  he  is 
more  at  home  and  comfortable  at  the 
same  old  figure  he  is  used  to  than  any 
other  way.  Or,  if  his  mind  begun  to 
fail  him  on  earth  at  eighty,  that's 
where  he  finally  sticks  up  here.  He 
sticks  at  the  place  where  his  mind 
was  last  at  its  best,  for  there's  where 
his  enjoyment  is  best,  and  his  ways 
most  set  and  established." 

"Does  a  chap  of  twenty-five  stay 
always  twenty-five,  and  look  it?" 

"If  he  is  a  fool,  yes.  But  if  he  is 
bright,  and  ambitious  and  industrious, 
the  knowledge  he  gains  and  the  ex- 
periences he  has,  change  his  ways  and 
thoughts  and  likings,  and  make  him 
find  his  best  pleasure  in  the  company 
of  people  above  that  age ;  so  he  allows 
his  body  to  take  on  that  look  of  as 
5i 


Extract  from  Captain 

many  added  years  as  he  needs  to 
make  him  comfortable  and  proper  in 
that  sort  of  society;  he  lets  his  body 
go  on  taking  the  look  of  age,  accord- 
ing as  he  progresses,  and  by  and  by 
he  will  be  bald  and  wrinkled  outside, 
and  wise  and  deep  within." 

"Babies  the  same?" 

"Babies  the  same.  Laws,  what 
asses  we  used  to  be,  on  earth,  about 
these  things!  We  said  we'd  be  al- 
ways young  in  heaven.  We  didn't 
say  how  young — we  didn't  think  of 
that,  perhaps — that  is,  we  didn't  all 
think  alike,  anyway.  When  I  was  a 
boy  of  seven,  I  suppose  I  thought 
we'd  all  be  twelve,  in  heaven ;  when  I 
was  twelve,  I  suppose  I  thought  we'd 
all  be  eighteen  or  twenty  in  heaven; 
when  I  was  forty,  I  begun  to  go  back ; 
52 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

I  remember  I  hoped  we'd  all  be  about 
thirty  years  old  in  heaven.     Neither 
a  man  nor  a  boy  ever  thinks  the  age 
he  has  is  exactly  the  best  one — he 
puts  the  right  age  a  few  years  older 
or  a  few  years  younger  than  he  is. 
Then   he  makes   that  ideal   age  the 
general  age  of  the  heavenly  people. 
And  he  expects  everybody  to  stick  at 
that  age — stand  stock-still — and  ex- 
pects them  to  enjoy  it! — Now  just 
think  of  the  idea  of  standing  still  in 
heaven!    Think  of  a   heaven   made 
up  entirely  of  hoop-rolling,   marble- 
playing  cubs  of  seven  years! — or  of 
awkward,  diffident,   sentimental  im- 
maturities of  nineteen! — or  of  vigor- 
ous people  of  thirty,  healthy-minded, 
brimming  with  ambition,  but  chained 
hand  and  foot  to  that  one  age  and 
53 


Extract  from  Captain 

its  limitations  like  so  many  helpless 
galley-slaves !  Think  of  the  dull  same- 
ness of  a  society  made  up  of  people  all 
of  one  age  and  one  set  of  looks,  habits, 
tastes  and  feelings.  Think  how  superi- 
or to  it  earth  would  be,  with  its  variety 
of  types  and  faces  and  ages,  and  the 
enlivening  attrition  of  the  myriad  in- 
terests that  come  into  pleasant  collis- 
ion in  such  a  variegated  society." 

"  Look  here,"  says  I,  "do  you  know 
what  you're  doing?" 

"Well,  what  am  I  doing?" 

"You  are  making  heaven  pretty 
comfortable  in  one  way,  but  you  are 
playing  the  mischief  with  it  in  an- 
other." 

"How  d'you  mean?" 

"Well,"  I  says,  "take  a  young 
mother  that's  lost  her  child,  and — " 
54 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

'"Sh!"  he  says.  "Look!" 
It  was  a  woman.  Middle-aged, 
and  had  grizzled  hair.  She  was 
walking  slow,  and  her  head  was  bent 
down,  and  her  wings  hanging  limp 
and  droopy;  and  she  looked  ever  so 
tired,  and  was  crying,  poor  thing! 
She  passed  along  by,  with  her  head 
down,  that  way,  and  the  tears  run- 
ning down  her  face,  and  didn't  see  us. 
Then  Sandy  said,  low  and  gentle, 
and  full  of  pity: 

"She's  hunting  for  her  child!  No, 
found  it,  I  reckon.  Lord,  how  she's 
changed!  But  I  recognized  her  in  a 
minute,  though  it's  twenty-seven 
years  since  I  saw  her.  A  young 
mother  she  was,  about  twenty  two 
or  four,  or  along  there ;  and  blooming 
and  lovely  and  sweet?  oh,  just  a 
55 


Extract  from  Captain 

flower!  And  all  her  heart  and  all  her 
soul  was  wrapped  up  in  her  child,  her 
little  girl,  two  years  old.  And  it 
died,  and  she  went  wild  with  grief, 
just  wild!  Well,  the  only  comfort 
she  had  was  that  she'd  see  her  child 
again,  in  heaven — 'never  more  to 
part,'  she  said,  and  kept  on  saying  it 
over  and  over,  'never  more  to  part.' 
And  the  words  made  her  happy;  yes, 
they  did;  they  made  her  joyful; 
and  when  I  was  dying,  twenty-seven 
years  ago,  she  told  me  to  find  her 
child  the  first  thing,  and  say  she  was 
coming — 'soon,  soon,  very  soon,  she 
hoped  and  believed!'" 

"Why,  it's  pitiful,  Sandy." 
He  didn't  say  anything  for  a  while, 
but  sat  looking  at  the  ground,  think- 
ing.    Then  he  says,  kind  of  mournful : 
56 


Stormfield's  Visit  to   Heaoen 

"And  now  she's  come!" 

"Well?     Go  on." 

"Stormfield,  maybe  she  hasn't 
found  the  child,  but  /  think  she  has. 
Looks  so  to  me.  I've  seen  cases  be- 
fore. You  see,  she's  kept  that  child 
in  her  head  just  the  same  as  it  was 
when  she  jounced  it  in  her  arms  a 
little  chubby  thing.  But  here  it 
didn't  elect  to  stay  a  child.  No,  it 
elected  to  grow  up,  which  it  did. 
And  in  these  twenty-seven  years  it 
has  learned  all  the  deep  scientific 
learning  there  is  to  learn,  and  is  study- 
ing and  studying  and  learning  and 
learning  more  and  more,  all  the  time, 
and  don't  give  a  damn  for  anything 
but  learning;  just  learning,  and  dis- 
cussing gigantic  problems  with  people 
like  herself." 

57 


Extract  from  Captain 

"Well?" 

"Stormfield,  don't  you  see?  Her 
mother  knows  cranberries,  and  how 
to  tend  them,  and  pick  them,  and 
put  them  up,  and  market  them;  and 
not  another  blamed  thing!  Her  and 
her  daughter  can't  be  any  more  com- 
pany for  each  other  now  than  mud 
turtle  and  bird  o'  paradise.  Poor 
thing,  she  was  looking  for  a  baby  to 
jounce;  /  think  she's  struck  a  dis- 
app'intment." 

"Sandy,  what  will  they  do — stay 
unhappy  forever  in  heaven?" 

"No,  they'll  come  together  and  get 
adjusted  by  and  by.  But  not  this 
year,  and  not  next.     By  and  by." 


Stormfield's  Visit  to   Heaoen 


II 


HAD  been  having  con- 
siderable trouble  with 
my  wings.  The  day 
after  I  helped  the  choir 
I  made  a  dash  or  two  with  them, 
but  was  not  lucky.  First  off,  I  flew 
thirty  yards,  and  then  fouled  an 
Irishman  and  brought  him  down — 
brought  us  both  down,  in  fact.  Next, 
I  had  a  collision  with  a  Bishop — and 
bowled  him  down,  of  course.  We 
had  some  sharp  words,  and  I  felt 
pretty  cheap,  to  come  banging  into 
a  grave  old  person  like  that,  with  a 
5  59 


Extract  from  Captain 

million    strangers    looking    on    and 
smiling  to  themselves. 

I  saw  I  hadn't  got  the  hang  of  the 
steering,  and  so  couldn't  rightly  tell 
where  I  was  going  to  bring  up  when  I 
started.  I  went  afoot  the  rest  of  the 
day,  and  let  my  wings  hang.  Early 
next  morning  I  went  to  a  private  place 
to  have  some  practice.  I  got  up  on  a 
pretty  high  rock,  and  got  a  good  start, 
and  went  swooping  down,  aiming  for 
a  bush  a  little  over  three  hundred 
yards  off;  but  I  couldn't  seem  to  cal- 
culate for  the  wind,  which  was  about 
two  points  abaft  my  beam.  I  could 
see  I  was  going  considerable  to  looard 
of  the  bush,  so  I  worked  my  starboard 
wing  slow  and  went  ahead  strong  on 
the  port  one,  but  it  wouldn't  answer; 
I  could  see  I  was  going  to  broach  to, 
60 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

so  I  slowed  down  on  both,  and  lit. 
I  went  back  to  the  rock  and  took 
another  chance  at  it.  I  aimed  two 
or  three  points  to  starboard  of  the 
bush — yes,  more  than  that — enough 
so  as  to  make  it  nearly  a  head-wind. 
I  done  well  enough,  but  made  pretty 
poor  time.  I  could  see,  plain  enough, 
that  on  a  head-wind,  wings  was  a 
mistake.  I  could  see  that  a  body 
could  sail  pretty  close  to  the  wind, 
but  he  couldn't  go  in  the  wind's  eye. 
I  could  see  that  if  I  wanted  to  go 
a-visiting  any  distance  from  home,  and 
the  wind  was  ahead,  I  might  have  to 
wait  days,  maybe,  for  a  change;  and 
I  could  see,  too,  that  these  things 
could  not  be  any  use  at  all  in  a  gale ;  if 
you  tried  to  run  before  the  wind,  you 
would  make  a  mess  of  it,  for  there 
61 


Extract  from  Captain 

isn't  any  way  to  shorten  sail — like 
reefing,  you  know — you  have  to  take 
it  all  in — shut  your  feathers  down  flat 
to  your  sides.  That  would  land  you, 
of  course.  You  could  lay  to,  with 
your  head  to  the  wind — that  is  the 
best  you  could  do,  and  right  hard  work 
you'd  find  it,  too.  If  you  tried  any 
other  game,  you  would  founder,  sure. 

I  judge  it  was  about  a  couple  of 
weeks  or  so  after  this  that  I  dropped 
old  Sandy  McWilliams  a  note  one  day 
— it  was  a  Tuesday — and  asked  him 
to  come  over  and  take  his  manna  and 
quails  with  me  next  day ;  and  the  first 
thing  he  did  when  he  stepped  in  was 
to  twinkle  his  eye  in  a  sly  way,  and 
say,— 

"Well,  Cap,  what  you  done  with 
your  wings?" 

62 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

I  saw  in  a  minute  that  there  was 
some  sarcasm  done  up  in  that  rag 
somewheres,  but  I  never  let  on.  I 
only  says, — ■ 

"  Gone  to  the  wash." 

"Yes,"  he  says,  in  a  dry  sort  of 
way,  "  they  mostly  go  to  the  wash — 
about  this  time — I've  often  noticed 
it.  Fresh  angels  are  powerful  neat. 
When  do  you  look  for  'em  back?" 

"Day  after  to-morrow,"  says  I. 

He  winked  at  me,  and  smiled. 

Says  I, — 

"Sandy,  out  with  it.  Come — no 
secrets  among  friends.  I  notice  you 
don't  ever  wear  wings — and  plenty 
others  don't.  I've  been  making  an 
ass  of  myself — is  that  it?" 

"That  is  about  the  size  of  it.  But 
it  is  no  harm.  We  all  do  it  at  first. 
63 


Extract  from   Captain 

It's  perfectly  natural.  You  see,  on 
earth  we  jump  to  such  foolish  con- 
clusions as  to  things  up  here.  In  the 
pictures  we  always  saw  the  angels 
with  wings  on — and  that  was  all  right; 
but  we  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that 
that  was  their  way  of  getting  around 
— and  that  was  all  wrong.  The  wings 
ain't  anything  but  a  uniform,  that's 
all.  When  they  are  in  the  field — so 
to  speak, — they  always  wear  them; 
you  never  see  an  angel  going  with  a 
message  anywhere  without  his  wings, 
any  more  than  you  would  see  a 
military  officer  presiding  at  a  court- 
martial  without  his  uniform,  or  a  post- 
man delivering  letters,  or  a  policeman 
walking  his  beat,  in  plain  clothes. 
But  they  ain't  to  fly  with!  The 
wings  are  for  show,  not  for  use.  Old 
64 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

experienced  angels  are  like  officers 
of  the  regular  army  —  they  dress 
plain,  when  they  are  off  duty.  New 
angels  are  like  the  militia — never  shed 
the  uniform  —  always  fluttering  and 
floundering  around  in  their  wings, 
butting  people  down,  flapping  here, 
and  there,  and  everywhere,  always 
imagining  they  are  attracting  the 
admiring  eye — well,  they  just  think 
they  are  the  very  most  important 
people  in  heaven.  And  when  you  see 
one  of  them  come  sailing  around  with 
one  wing  tipped  up  and  t'other  down, 
you  make  up  your  mind  he  is  saying 
to  himself:  'I  wish  Mary  Ann  in 
Arkansaw  could  see  me  now.  I 
reckon  she'd  wish  she  hadn't  shook 
me. '  No,  they're  just  for  show,  that's 
all — only  just  for  show." 
65 


Extract  from  Captain 

"  I  judge  you've  got  it  about  right, 
Sandy,"  says  I. 

"  Why,  look  at  it  yourself,"  says  he. 
"  You  ain't  built  for  wings — no  man 
is.  You  know  what  a  grist  of  years 
it  took  you  to  come  here  from  the 
earth — and  yet  you  were  booming 
along  faster  than  any  cannon-ball 
could  go.  Suppose  you  had  to  fly 
that  distance  with  your  wings — 
wouldn't  eternity  have  been  over 
before  you  got  here?  Certainly. 
Well,  angels  have  to  go  to  the  earth 
every  day — millions  of  them — to  ap- 
pear in  visions  to  dying  children  and 
good  people,  you  know — it's  the  heft 
of  their  business.  They  appear  with 
their  wings,  of  course,  because  they 
are  on  official  service,  and  because 
the  dying  persons  wouldn't  know  they 
66 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

were  angels  if  they  hadn't  wings — 
but  do  you  reckon  they  fly  with  them  ? 
It  stands  to  reason  they  don't.  The 
wings  would  wear  out  before  they  got 
half-way;  even  the  pin-feathers  would 
be  gone;  the  wing  frames  would  be  as 
bare  as  kite  sticks  before  the  paper  is 
pasted  on.  The  distances  in  heaven 
are  billions  of  times  greater;  angels 
have  to  go  all  over  heaven  every  day ; 
could  they  do  it  with  their  wings 
alone?  No,  indeed;  they  wear  the 
wings  for  style,  but  they  travel  any 
distance  in  an  instant  by  wishing. 
The  wishing-carpet  of  the  Arabian 
Nights  was  a  sensible  idea — but  our 
earthly  idea  of  angels  flying  these 
awful  distances  with  their  clumsy 
wings  was  foolish. 

"Our  young  saints,  of  both  sexes, 
67 


Extract  from  Captain 

wear  wings  all  the  time — blazing  red 
ones,  and  blue  and  green,  and  gold, 
and  variegated,  and  rainbowed,  and 
ring-streaked-and-striped  ones  —  and 
nobody  finds  fault.  It  is  suitable  to 
their  time  of  life.  The  things  are 
beautiful,  and  they  set  the  young 
people  off.  They  are  the  most  strik- 
ing and  lovely  part  of  their  outfit — a 
halo  don't  begin." 

"Well,"  says  I,  "I've  tucked  mine 
away  in  the  cupboard,  and  I  allow  to 
let  them  lay  there  till  there's  mud." 

"Yes — or  a  reception." 

"What's  that?" 

"Well,  you  can  see  one  to-night  if 
you  want  to.  There's  a  barkeeper 
from  Jersey  City  going  to  be  re- 
ceived." 

"Go  on — tell  me  about  it." 
68 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

"  This  barkeeper  got  converted  at  a 
Moody  and  Sankey  meeting,  in  New 
York,  and  started  home  on  the  ferry- 
boat, and  there  was  a  collision  and  he 
got  drowned.  He  is  of  a  class  that 
think  all  heaven  goes  wild  with  joy 
when  a  particularly  hard  lot  like  him  is 
saved ;  they  think  all  heaven  turns  out 
hosannahing  to  welcome  them;  they 
think  there  isn't  anything  talked 
about  in  the  realms  of  the  blest  but 
their  case,  for  that  day.  This  bar- 
keeper thinks  there  hasn't  been  such 
another  stir  here  in  years,  as  his  com- 
ing is  going  to  raise. — And  I've  always 
noticed  this  peculiarity  about  a  dead 
barkeeper  —  he  not  only  expects  all 
hands  to  turn  out  when  he  arrives, 
but  he  expects  to  be  received  with  a 
torchlight  procession." 
69 


Extract  from  Captain 

"  I  reckon  he  is  disappointed,  then." 
"  No,  he  isn't.  No  man  is  allowed 
to  be  disappointed  here.  Whatever 
he  wants,  when  he  comes — that  is, 
any  reasonable  and  unsacrilegious 
thing — he  can  have.  There's  always 
a  few  millions  or  billions  of  young 
folks  around  who  don't  want  any 
better  entertainment  than  to  fill  up 
their  lungs  and  swarm  out  with  their 
torches  and  have  a  high  time  over  a 
barkeeper.  It  tickles  the  barkeeper 
till  he  can't  rest,  it  makes  a  charming 
lark  for  the  young  folks,  it  don't  do 
anybody  any  harm,  it  don't  cost  a 
rap,  and  it  keeps  up  the  place's  repu- 
tation for  making  all  comers  happy 
and  content." 

"Very  good.     I'll  be  on  hand  and 
see  them  land  the  barkeeper." 
70 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

"It  is  manners  to  go  in  full  dress. 
You  want  to  wear  your  wings,  you 
know,  and  your  other  things." 

"Which  ones?" 

"  Halo,  and  harp,  and  palm  branch, 
and  all  that." 

"Well,"  says  I,  "I  reckon  I  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  myself,  but  the  fact 
is  I  left  them  laying  around  that  day 
I  resigned  from  the  choir.  I  haven't 
got  a  rag  to  wear  but  this  robe  and 
the  wings." 

"That's  all  right.  You'll  find 
they've  been  raked  up  and  saved  for 
you.     Send  for  them." 

"  I'll  do  it,  Sandy.  But  what  was  it 
you  was  saying  about  unsacrilegious 
things,  which  people  expect  to  get, 
and  will  be  disappointed  about?" 

"Oh,  there  are  a  lot  of  such  things 
7i 


Extract  from  Captain 

that  people  expect  and  don't  get. 
For  instance,  there's  a  Brooklyn 
preacher  by  the  name  of  Talmage, 
who  is  laying  up  a  considerable  dis- 
appointment for  himself.  He  says, 
every  now  and  then  in  his  sermons, 
that  the  first  thing  he  does  when  he 
gets  to  heaven,  will  be  to  fling  his 
arms  around  Abraham,  Isaac  and 
Jacob,  and  kiss  them  and  weep  on 
them.  There's  millions  of  people 
down  there  on  earth  that  are  promis- 
ing themselves  the  same  thing.  As 
many  as  sixty  thousand  people  arrive 
here  every  single  day,  that  want  to 
run  straight  to  Abraham,  Isaac  and 
Jacob,  and  hug  them  and  weep  on 
them.  Now  mind  you,  sixty  thou- 
sand a  day  is  a  pretty  heavy  contract 
for  those  old  people.  If  they  were  a 
72 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

mind  to  allow  it,  they  wouldn't  ever 
have  anything  to  do,  year  in  and  year 
out,  but  stand  up  and  be  hugged  and 
wept  on  thirty-two  hours  in  the  twen- 
ty-four. They  would  be  tired  out  and 
as  wet  as  muskrats  all  the  time.  What 
would  heaven  be,  to  them?  It  would 
be  a  mighty  good  place  to  get  out  of — 
you  know  that,  yourself.  Those  are 
kind  and  gentle  old  Jews,  but  they 
ain't  any  fonder  of  kissing  the  emo- 
tional highlights  of  Brooklyn  than  you 
be.  You  mark  my  words,  Mr.  T.'s 
endearments  are  going  to  be  declined, 
with  thanks.  There  are  limits  to  the 
privileges  of  the  elect,  even  in  heaven. 
Why,  if  Adam  was  to  show  himself 
to  every  new  comer  that  wants  to  call 
and  gaze  at  him  and  strike  him  for 
his  autograph,  he  would  never  have 
73 


Extract  from  Captain 

time  to  do  anything  else  but  just  that. 
Talmage  has  said  he  is  going  to  give 
Adam  some  of  his  attentions,  as 
well  as  A.,  I.  and  J.  But  he  will 
have  to  change  his  mind  about 
that." 

"Do  you  think  Talmage  will  really 
come  here?" 

"Why,  certainly,  he  will;  but  don't 
you  be  alarmed;  he  will  run  with  his 
own  kind,  and  there's  plenty  of  them. 
That  is  the  main  charm  of  heaven — 
there's  all  kinds  here — which  wouldn't 
be  the  case  if  you  let  the  preachers 
tell  it.  Anybody  can  find  the  sort 
he  prefers,  here,  and  he  just  lets  the 
others  alone,  and  they  let  him  alone. 
When  the  Deity  builds  a  heaven,  it 
is  built  right,  and  on  a  liberal 
plan." 

74 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

Sandy  sent  home  for  his  things,  and 
I  sent  for  mine,  and  about  nine  in  the 
evening  we  begun  to  dress.  Sandy 
says, — 

"This  is  going  to  be  a  grand  time 
for  you,  Stormy.  Like  as  not  some 
of  the  patriarchs  will  turn  out." 

"No,  but  will  they?" 

"Like  as  not.  Of  course  they  are 
pretty  exclusive.  They  hardly  ever 
show  themselves  to  the  common  pub- 
lic. I  believe  they  never  turn  out 
except  for  an  eleventh-hour  convert. 
They  wouldn't  do  it  then,  only 
earthly  tradition  makes  a  grand  show 
pretty  necessary  on  that  kind  of  an 
occasion." 

"Do  they  all  turn  out,  Sandy?" 

"Who? — all  the  patriarchs?  Oh, 
no — hardly  ever  more  than  a  couple. 
6  75 


Extract  from  Captain 

You  will  be  here  fifty  thousand  years 
— maybe  more — before  you  get  a 
glimpse  of  all  the  patriarchs  and 
prophets.  Since  I  have  been  here, 
Job  has  been  to  the  front  once,  and 
once  Ham  and  Jeremiah  both  at  the 
same  time.  But  the  finest  thing  that 
has  happened  in  my  day  was  a  year 
or  so  ago;  that  was  Charles  Peace's 
reception — him  they  called  '  the  Ban- 
nercross  Murderer' — an  Englishman. 
There  were  four  patriarchs  and  two 
prophets  on  the  Grand  Stand  that 
time  —  there  hasn't  been  anything 
like  it  since  Captain  Kidd  came ;  Abel 
was  there  —  the  first  time  in  twelve 
hundred  years.  A  report  got  around 
that  Adam  was  coming;  well,  of 
course,  Abel  was  enough  to  bring  a 
crowd,  all  by  himself,  but  there  is  no- 
76 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

body  that  can  draw  like  Adam.     It 
was  a  false  report,  but  it  got  around, 
anyway,  as  I  say,  and  it  will  be  a  long 
day  before  I  see  the  like  of  it  again. 
The   reception    was   in   the    English 
department,  of  course,  which  is  eight 
hundred  and  eleven  million  miles  from 
the  New  Jersey  line.     I  went,  along 
with  a  good  many  of  my  neighbors, 
and  it  was  a  sight  to  see,  I  can  tell  you. 
Flocks   came   from   all   the   depart- 
ments.    I  saw  Esquimaux  there,  and 
Tartars,   negroes,  Chinamen — people 
from  everywhere.     You  see  a  mixture 
like  that  in  the  Grand  Choir,  the  first 
day  you  land  here,  but  you  hardly 
ever  see  it  again.     There  were  billions 
of  people ;  when  they  were  singing  or 
hosannahing,  the  noise  was  wonder- 
ful; and  even  when  their  tongues  were 
77 


Extract  from  Captain 

still  the  drumming  of  the  wings  was 
nearly  enough  to  burst  your  head, 
for  all  the  sky  was  as  thick  as  if  it 
was  snowing  angels.  Although  Adam 
was  not  there,  it  was  a  great  time 
anyway,  because  we  had  three  arch- 
angels on  the  Grand  Stand — it  is  a  sel- 
dom thing  that  even  one  comes  out." 

"  What  did  they  look  like,  Sandy  ?  " 

"  Well,  they  had  shining  faces,  and 
shining  robes,  and  wonderful  rainbow 
wings,  and  they  stood  eighteen  feet 
high,  and  wore  swords,  and  held  their 
heads  up  in  a  noble  way,  and  looked 
like  soldiers." 

"  Did  they  have  halos?" 

"No — anyway,  not  the  hoop  kind. 

The  archangels  and  the  upper-class 

patriarchs   wear  a  finer  thing  than 

that.     It  is  a  round,  solid,  splendid 

78 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaucn 

glory  of  gold,  that  is  blinding  to  look 
at.  You  have  often  seen  a  patriarch 
in  a  picture,  on  earth,  with  that  thing 
on — you  remember  it? — he  looks  as 
if  he  had  his  head  in  a  brass  platter. 
That  don't  give  you  the  right  idea  of 
it  at  all — it  is  much  more  shining  and 
beautiful." 

"Did  you  talk  with  those  arch- 
angels and  patriarchs,  Sandy?" 

"Who — If  Why,  what  can  you 
be  thinking  about,  Stormy?  I  ain't 
worthy  to  speak  to  such  as  they." 

"IsTalmage?" 

"Of  course  not.  You  have  got 
the  same  mixed-up  idea  about  these 
things  that  everybody  has  down 
there.  I  had  it  once,  but  I  got  over 
it.  Down  there  they  talk  of  the 
heavenly  King — and  that  is  right — 
79 


Extract  from  Captain 

but  then  they  go  right  on  speaking  as 
if  this  was  a  republic  and  everybody 
was  on  a  dead  level  with  everybody 
else,  and  privileged  to  fling  his  arms 
around  anybody  he  comes  across,  and 
be  hail-fellow-well-met  with  all  the 
elect,  from  the  highest  down.  How 
tangled  up  and  absurd  that  is!  How 
are  you  going  to  have  a  republic  under 
a  king?  How  are  you  going  to  have 
a  republic  at  all,  where  the  head  of 
the  government  is  absolute,  holds  his 
place  forever,  and  has  no  parliament, 
no  council  to  meddle  or  make  in  his 
affairs,  nobody  voted  for,  nobody 
elected,  nobody  in  the  whole  universe 
with  a  voice  in  the  government,  no- 
body asked  to  take  a  hand  in  its 
matters,  and  nobody  allowed  to  do 
>t?  Fine  republic,  ain't  it?" 
80 


Stormfield's  Visit  to   Heaoen 

"Well,  yes — it  is  a  little  different 
from  the  idea  I  had — but  I  thought 
I  might  go  around  and  get  acquainted 
with  the  grandees,  anyway — not  ex- 
actly splice  the  main-brace  with  them, 
you  know,  but  shake  hands  and  pass 
the  time  of  day." 

"Could  Tom,  Dick  and  Harry  call 
on  the  Cabinet  of  Russia  and  do 
that  ?  —  on  Prince  Gortschakoff ,  for 
instance?" 

"I  reckon  not,  Sandy." 

"Well,  this  is  Russia — only  more 
so.  There's  not  the  shadow  of  a 
republic  about  it  anywhere.  There 
are  ranks,  here.  There  are  viceroys, 
princes,  governors,  sub  -  governors, 
sub-sub-governor-s,  and  a  hundred 
orders  of  nobility,  grading  along 
down  from  grand-ducal  archangels, 
81 


Extract  from  Captain 

stage  by  stage,  till  the  general  level  is 
struck,  where  there  ain't  any  titles. 
Do  you  know  what  a  prince  of  the 
blood  is,  on  earth?" 

"No." 

"Well,  a  prince  of  the  blood  don't 
belong  to  the  royal  family  exactly, 
and  he  don't  belong  to  the  mere 
nobility  of  the  kingdom;  he  is  lower 
than  the  one,  and  higher  than  t'other. 
That's  about  the  position  of  the  pa- 
triarchs and  prophets  here.  There's 
some  mighty  high  nobility  here — 
people  that  you  and  I  ain't  worthy 
to  polish  sandals  for — and  they  ain't 
worthy  to  polish  sandals  for  the  pa- 
triarchs and  prophets.  That  gives 
you  a  kind  of  an  idea  of  their  rank, 
don't  it  ?  You  begin  to  see  how  high 
up  they  are,  don't  you  ?  Just  to  get 
82 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

a  two-minute  glimpse  of  one  of  them 
is  a  thing  for  a  body  to  remember 
and  tell  about  for  a  thousand  years. 
Why,  Captain,  just  think  of  this: 
if  Abraham  was  to  set  his  foot  down 
here  by  this  door,  there  would  be  a 
railing  set  up  around  that  foot-track 
right  away,  and  a  shelter  put  over  it, 
and  people  would  flock  here  from  all 
over  heaven,  for  hundreds  and  hun- 
dreds of  years,  to  look  at  it.  Abraham 
is  one  of  the  parties  that  Mr.  Talmage, 
of  Brooklyn,  is  going  to  embrace,  and 
kiss,  and  weep  on,  when  he  comes. 
He  wants  to  lay  in  a  good  stock  of 
tears,  you  know,  or  five  to  one  he  will 
go  dry  before  he  gets  a  chance  to  do 
it." 

"Sandy,"  says  I,  "I  had  an  idea 
that  /  was  going  to  be  equals  with 
83 


Extract  from  Captain 

everybody  here,  too,  but  I  will  let 
that  drop.  It  don't  matter,  and  I 
am  plenty  happy  enough  anyway." 

"Captain,  you  are  happier  than 
you  would  be,  the  other  way.  These 
old  patriarchs  and  prophets  have  got 
ages  the  start  of  you ;  they  know  more 
in  two  minutes  than  you  know  in  a 
year.  Did  you  ever  try  to  have  a 
sociable  improving-time  discussing 
winds,  and  currents  and  variations  of 
compass  with  an  undertaker?" 

"I  get  your  idea,  Sandy.  He 
couldn't  interest  me.  He  would  be 
an  ignoramus  in  such  things — he 
would  bore  me,  and  I  would  bore 
him." 

' '  You  have  got  it.  You  would  bore 
the  patriarchs  when  you  talked,  and 
when  they  talked  they  would  shoot 
84 


Stormfreld's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

over  your  head.  By  and  by  you 
would  say,  'Good  morning,  your 
Eminence,  I  will  call  again '  —  but 
you  wouldn't.  Did  you  ever  ask  the 
slush-boy  to  come  up  in  the  cabin 
and  take  dinner  with  you?" 

"  I  get  your  drift  again,  Sandy.  I 
wouldn't  be  used  to  such  grand  people 
as  the  patriarchs  and  prophets,  and  I 
would  be  sheepish  and  tongue-tied  in 
their  company,  and  mighty  glad  to 
get  out  of  it.  Sandy,  which  is  the 
highest  rank,  patriarch  or  prophet?" 

"Oh,  the  prophets  hold  over  the 
patriarchs.  The  newest  prophet, 
even,  is  of  a  sight  more  consequence 
than  the  oldest  patriarch.  Yes,  sir, 
Adam  himself  has  to  walk  behind 
Shakespeare." 

"Was  Shakespeare  a  prophet?" 
85 


Extract  from  Captain 

"Of  course  he  was;  and  so  was 
Homer,  and  heaps  more.  But  Shake- 
speare and  the  rest  have  to  walk  be- 
hind a  common  tailor  from  Tennessee, 
by  the  name  of  Billings;  and  behind 
a  horse-doctor  named  Sakka,  from 
Afghanistan.  Jeremiah,  and  Billings 
and  Buddha  walk  together,  side  by 
side,  right  behind  a  crowd  from 
planets  not  in  our  astronomy;  next 
come  a  dozen  or  two  from  Jupiter 
and  other  worlds;  next  come  Daniel, 
and  Sakka  and  Confucius;  next  a  lot 
from  systems  outside  of  ours;  next 
come  Ezekiel,  and  Mahomet,  Zoro- 
aster, and  a  knife-grinder  from  ancient 
Egypt;  then  there  is  a  long  string, 
and  after  them,  away  down  toward 
the  bottom,  come  Shakespeare  and 
Homer,  and  a  shoemaker  named  Ma- 
86 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Hcaoen 

rais,  from  the  "back  settlements  of 
France." 

"  Have  they  really  rung  in  Mahomet 
and  all  those  other  heathens?" 

"Yes — they  all  had  their  message, 
and  they  all  get  their  reward.  The 
man  who  don't  get  his  reward  on 
earth,  needn't  bother — he  will  get  it 
here,  sure." 

"But  why  did  they  throw  off  on 
Shakespeare,  that  way,  and  put  him 
away  down  there  below  those  shoe- 
makers and  horse-doctors  and  knife- 
grinders — a  lot  of  people  nobody  ever 
heard  of?" 

"That  is  the  heavenly  justice  of  it 
— they  warn't  rewarded  according  to 
their  deserts,  on  earth,  but  here  they 
get  their  rightful  rank.  That  tailor 
Billings,  from  Tennessee,  wrote  poetry 
87 


Extract  from  Captain 

that  Homer  and  Shakespeare  couldn't 
begin  to  come  up  to;  but  nobody- 
would  print  it,  nobody  read  it  but  his 
neighbors,  an  ignorant  lot,  and  they 
laughed  at  it.  Whenever  the  village 
had  a  drunken  frolic  and  a  dance, 
they  would  drag  him  in  and  crown 
him  with  cabbage  leaves,  and  pretend 
to  bow  down  to  him;  and  one  night 
when  he  was  sick  and  nearly  starved 
to  death,  they  had  him  out  and 
crowned  him,  and  then  they  rode  him 
on  a  rail  about  the  village,  and  every- 
body followed  along,  beating  tin  pans 
and  yelling.  Well,  he  died  before 
morning.  He  wasn't  ever  expecting  to 
go  to  heaven,  much  less  that  there  was 
going  to  be  any  fuss  made  over  him,  so 
I  reckon  he  was  a  good  deal  surprised 
when  the  reception  broke  on  him." 
88 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

"Was  you  there,  Sandy?" 

"Bless  you,  no!" 

"Why?  Didn't  you  know  it  was 
going  to  come  off?" 

"Well,  I  judge  I  did.  It  was  the 
talk  of  these  realms — not  for  a  day, 
like  this  barkeeper  business,  but  for 
twenty  years  before  the  man  died." 

"  Why  the  mischief  didn't  you  go, 
then?" 

"Now  how  you  talk!    The  like  of 
me  go  meddling  around  at  the  recep- 
tion of  a  prophet  ?    A  mudsill  like  me 
trying  to  push  in  and  help  receive  an 
awful  grandee  like  Edward  J.  Billings  ? 
Why,   I  should  have   been   laughed 
at    for    a    billion    miles    around.     I 
shouldn't  ever  heard  the  last  of  it." 
"Well,  who  did  go,  then?" 
"  Mighty  few  people  that  you  and  I 
89 


Extract  from   Captain 

will  ever  get  a  chance  to  see,  Captain. 
Not  a  solitary  commoner  ever  has  the 
luck  to  see  a  reception  of  a  prophet, 
I  can  tell  you.  All  the  nobility, 
and  all  the  patriarchs  and  prophets — 
every  last  one  of  them — and  all  the 
archangels,  and  all  the  princes  and 
governors  and  viceroys,  were  there, — 
and  no  small  fry — not  a  single  one. 
And  mind  you,  I'm  not  talking  about 
only  the  grandees  from  our  world, 
but  the  princes  and  patriarchs  and 
so  on  from  all  the  worlds  that  shine 
in  our  sky,  and  from  billions  more 
that  belong  in  systems  upon  systems 
away  outside  of  the  one  our  sun  is  in. 
There  were  some  prophets  and  patri- 
archs there  that  ours  ain't  a  circum- 
stance to,  for  rank  and  illustrious- 
ness  and  all  that.  Some  were  from 
90 


Stormfield's  Visit  to   Heaoen 

Jupiter  and  other  worlds  in  our  own 
system,  but  the  most  celebrated  were 
three  poets,  Saa,  Bo  and  Soof,  from 
great  planets  in  three  different  and 
very  remote  systems.  These  three 
names  are  common  and  familiar  in 
every  nook  and  corner  of  heaven, 
clear  from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other — 
fully  as  well  known  as  the  eighty 
Supreme  Archangels,  in  fact — where- 
as our  Moses,  and  Adam,  and  the  rest, 
have  not  been  heard  of  outside  of  our 
world's  little  corner  of  heaven,  except 
by  a  few  very  learned  men  scattered 
here  and  there — and  they  always  spell 
their  names  wrong,  and  get  the  per- 
formances of  one  mixed  up  with  the 
doings  of  another,  and  they  almost 
always  locate  them  simply  in  our  solar 
system,  and  think  that  is  enough  with- 
7  91 


Extract  from   Captain 

out  going  into  little  details  such  as 
naming  the  particular  world  they  are 
from.  It  is  like  a  learned  Hindoo 
showing  off  how  much  he  knows  by 
saying  Longfellow  lives  in  the  United 
States — as  if  he  lived  all  over  the 
United  States,  and  as  if  the  country 
was  so  small  you  couldn't  throw 
a  brick  there  without  hitting  him. 
Between  you  and  me,  it  does  gravel 
me,  the  cool  way  people  from  those 
monster  worlds  outside  our  system 
snub  our  little  world,  and  even 
our  system.  Of  course  we  think  a 
good  deal  of  Jupiter,  because  our 
world  is  only  a  potato  to  it,  for  size ; 
but  then  there  are  worlds  in  other 
systems  that  Jupiter  isn't  even  a 
mustard-seed  to  —  like  the  planet 
Goobra,  for  instance,  which  you 
92 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

couldn't  squeeze  inside  the  orbit  of 
Halley's  comet  without  straining  the 
rivets.  Tourists  from  Goobra  (I  mean 
parties  that  lived  and  died  there — 
natives)  come  here,  now  and  then, 
and  inquire  about  our  world,  and 
when  they  find  out  it  is  so  little  that 
a  streak  of  lightning  can  flash  clear 
around  it  in  the  eighth  of  a  second, 
they  have  to  lean  up  against  some- 
thing to  laugh.  Then  they  screw  a 
glass  into  their  eye  and  go  to  examin- 
ing us,  as  if  we  were  a  curious  kind  of 
foreign  bug,  or  something  of  that  sort. 
One  of  them  asked  me  how  long  our 
day  was ;  and  when  I  told  him  it  was 
twelve  hours  long,  as  a  general  thing, 
he  asked  me  if  people  where  I  was 
from  considered  it  worth  while  to  get 
up  and  wash  for  such  a  day  as  that. 
93 


Extract  from  Captain 

That  is  the  way  with  those  Goobra 
people — they  can't  seem  to  let  a 
chance  go  by  to  throw  it  in  your  face 
that  their  day  is  three  hundred  and 
twenty-two  of  our  years  long.  This 
young  snob  was  just  of  age — he  was 
six  or  seven  thousand  of  his  days  old 
— say  two  million  of  our  years — and 
he  had  all  the  puppy  airs  that  belong 
to  that  time  of  life  —  that  turning- 
point  when  a  person  has  got  over  be- 
ing a  boy  and  yet  ain't  quite  a  man 
exactly.  If  it  had  been  anywhere  else 
but  in  heaven,  I  would  have  given  him 
a  piece  of  my  mind.  Well,  anyway, 
Billings  had  the  grandest  reception 
that  has  been  seen  in  thousands  of 
centuries,  and  I  think  it  will  have  a 
good  effect.  His  name  will  be  carried 
pretty  far,  and  it  will  make  our  system 
94 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

talked  about,  and  maybe  our  world, 
too,  and  raise  us  in  the  respect  of  the 
general  public  of  heaven.  Why,  look 
here — Shakespeare  walked  backwards 
before  that  tailor  from  Tennessee,  and 
scattered  flowers  for  him  to  walk  on, 
and  Homer  stood  behind  his  chair 
and  waited  on  him  at  the  banquet. 
Of  course  that  didn't  go  for  much 
there,  amongst  all  those  big  foreigners 
from  other  systems,  as  they  hadn't 
heard  of  Shakespeare  or  Homer 
either,  but  it  would  amount  to  con- 
siderable down  there  on  our  little 
earth  if  they  could  know  about  it.  I 
wish  there  was  something  in  that 
miserable  spiritualism,  so  we  could 
send  them  word.  That  Tennessee 
village  would  set  up  a  monument  to 
Billings,  then,  and  his  autograph 
95 


Extract  from  Captain 

would  outsell  Satan's.  Well,  they 
had  grand  times  at  that  reception — 
a  small-fry  noble  from  Hoboken  told 
me  all  about  it — Sir  Richard  Duffer, 
Baronet." 

"What,  Sandy,  a  nobleman  from 
Hoboken?     How  is  that?" 

"Easy  enough.  Duffer  kept  a 
sausage-shop  and  never  saved  a  cent 
in  his  life  because  he  used  to  give  all 
his  spare  meat  to  the  poor,  in  a  quiet 
way.  Not  tramps,  ■ —  no,  the  other 
sort — the  sort  that  will  starve  before 
they  will  beg — honest  square  people 
out  of  work.  Dick  used  to  watch 
hungry-looking  men  and  women  and 
children,  and  track  them  home,  and 
find  out  all  about  them  from  the 
neighbors,  and  then  feed  them  and 
find  them  work.  As  nobody  ever 
96 


Stormfield's  Visit  to   Heauen 

saw  him  give  anything  to  anybody, 
he  had  the  reputation  of  being  mean ; 
he  died  with  it,  too,  and  everybody 
said  it  was  a  good  riddance;  but  the 
minute  he  landed  here,  they  made  him 
a  baronet,  and  the  very  first  words 
Dick  the  sausage-maker  of  Hoboken 
heard  when  he  stepped  upon  the 
heavenly  shore  were,  'Welcome,  Sir 
Richard  Duffer!'  It  surprised  him 
some,  because  he  thought  he  had 
reasons  to  believe  he  was  pointed  for 
a  warmer  climate  than  this  one." 

All  of  a  sudden  the  whole  region 
fairly  rocked  under  the  crash  of  eleven 
hundred  and  one  thunder  blasts,  all 
let  off  at  once,  and  Sandy  says, — 
"  There,  that's  for  the  barkeep." 
I  jumped  up  and  says, — 
97 


Extract  from  Captain 

"Then  let's  be  moving  along,  San- 
dy; we  don't  want  to  miss  any  of 
this  thing,  you  know." 

"Keep  your  seat,"  he  says;  "he  is 
only  just  telegraphed,  that  is  all." 

"How?" 

"That  blast  only  means  that  he  has 
been  sighted  from  the  signal-station. 
He  is  off  Sandy  Hook.  The  com- 
mittees will  go  down  to  meet  him, 
now,  and  escort  him  in.  There  will 
be  ceremonies  and  delays;  they  won't 
be  coming  up  the  Bay  for  a  consider- 
able time,  yet.  It  is  several  billion 
miles  away,  anyway." 

"/  could  have  been  a  barkeeper  and 
a  hard  lot  just  as  well  as  not,"  says  I, 
remembering  the  lonesome  way  I  ar- 
rived, and  how  there  wasn't  any  com- 
mittee nor  anything. 
98 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

"I  notice  some  regret  in  your 
voice,"  says  Sanely,  "  and  it  is  natural 
enough;  but  let  bygones  be  bygones; 
you  went  according  to  your  lights, 
and  it  is  too  late  now  to  mend  the 
thing." 

"No,  let  it  slide,  Sandy,  I  don't 
mind.  But  you've  got  a  Sandy  Hook 
here,  too,  have  you?" 

"We've  got  everything  here,  just 
as  it  is  below.  All  the  States  and 
Territories  of  the  Union,  and  all  the 
kingdoms  of  the  earth  and  the  islands 
of  the  sea  are  laid  out  here  just  as  they 
are  on  the  globe — all  the  same  shape 
they  are  down  there,  and  all  graded 
to  the  relative  size,  only  each  State 
and  realm  and  island  is  a  good  many 
billion  times  bigger  here  than  it  is 
below.  There  goes  another  blast." 
99 


Extract  from  Captain 

"What  is  that  one  for?" 

"  That  is  only  another  fort  answer- 
ing the  first  one.  They  each  fire 
eleven  hundred  and  one  thunder 
blasts  at  a  single  dash — it  is  the  usual 
salute  for  an  eleventh-hour  guest;  a 
hundred  for  each  hour  and  an  extra 
one  for  the  guest's  sex;  if  it  was  a 
woman  we  would  know  it  by  their 
leaving  off  the  extra  gun." 

"How  do  we  know  there's  eleven 
hundred  and  one,  Sandy,  when  they 
all  go  off  at  once? — and  yet  we  cer- 
tainly do  know." 

"Our  intellects  are  a  good  deal 
sharpened  up,  here,  in  some  ways,  and 
that  is  one  of  them.  Numbers  and 
sizes  and  distances  are  so  great,  here, 
that  we  have  to  be  made  so  we  can 
feel  them — our  old  ways  of  counting 

IOO 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaven 

and  measuring  and  ciphering  wouldn't 
ever  give  us  an  idea  of  them,  but 
would  only  confuse  us  and  oppress  us 
and  make  our  heads  ache." 

After  some  more  talk  about  this,  I 
says:  "Sandy,  I  notice  that  I  hardly 
ever  see  a  white  angel;  where  I  run 
across  one  white  angel,  I  strike  as 
many  as  a  hundred  million  copper- 
colored  ones — people  that  can't  speak 
English.     How  is  that?" 

"  Weil,  you  will  find  it  the  same  in 
any  State  or  Territory  of  the  Amer- 
ican corner  of  heaven  you  choose 
to  go  to.  I  have  shot  along,  a  whole 
week  on  a  stretch,  and  gone  millions 
and  millions  of  miles,  through  perfect 
swarms  of  angels,  without  ever  seeing 
a  single  white  one,  or  hearing  a  word 
I  could  understand.    You  see,  Amer- 

IOI 


Extract  from  Captain 

ica  was  occupied  a  billion  years  and 
more,  by  Injuns  and  Aztecs,  and  that 
sort  of  folks,  before  a  white  man  ever 
set  his  foot  in  it.  During  the  first 
three  hundred  years  after  Colum- 
bus's discovery,  there  wasn't  ever 
more  than  one  good  lecture  audience 
of  white  people,  all  put  together,  in 
America — I  mean  the  whole  thing, 
British  Possessions  and  all;  in  the  be- 
ginning of  our  century  there  were  only 
6,000,000  or  7,000,000  —  say  seven; 
12,000,000  or  14,000,000  in  1825;  say 
23,000,000  in  1850;  40,000,000  in 
1875.  Our  death-rate  has  always 
been  20  in  1000  per  annum.  Well, 
140,000  died  the  first  year  of  the 
century;  280,000  the  twenty -fifth 
year;  500,000  the  fiftieth  year;  about 
a  million  the  seventy  -  fifth  year. 
102 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heauen 

Now  I  am  going  to  be  liberal  about 
this   thing,    and   consider  that   fifty 
million  whites  have  died  in  America 
from  the  beginning  up  to  to-day — 
make  it  sixty,  if  you  want  to ;  make  it 
a  hundred  million — it's  no  difference 
about    a   few   millions   one    way   or 
t'other.     Well,    now,    you    can    see, 
yourself,    that    when    you    come    to 
spread  a  little  dab  of  people  like  that 
over   these   hundreds   of   billions   of 
miles  of  American  territory  here  in 
heaven,  it  is  like  scattering  a  ten-cent 
box  of  homoeopathic  pills  over  the 
Great  Sahara  and  expecting  to  find 
them  again.     You  can't  expect  us  to 
amount  to  anything  in  heaven,  and 
we  don't — now  that  is  the  simple  fact, 
and  we  have  got  to  do  the  best  we  can 
with  it.     The  learned  men  from  other 
103 


Extract  from  Captain 

planets  and  other  systems  come  here 
and  hang  around  a  while,  when  they 
are  touring  around  the  Kingdom,  and 
then  go  back  to  their  own  section  of 
heaven  and  write  a  book  of  travels, 
and  they  give  America  about  five  lines 
in  it.  And  what  do  they  say  about 
us  ?  They  say  this  wilderness  is  popu- 
lated with  a  scattering  few  hundred 
thousand  billions  of  red  angels,  with 
now  and  then  a  curiously  complected 
diseased  one.  You  see,  they  think 
we  whites  and  the  occasional  nigger 
are  Injuns  that  have  been  bleached 
out  or  blackened  by  some  leprous 
disease  or  other — for  some  peculiarly 
rascally  sin,  mind  you.  It  is  a  mighty 
sour  pill  for  us  all,  my  friend — even 
the  modestest  of  us,  let  alone  the  other 
kind,  that  think  they  are  going  to  be 
104 


Stormfreld's  Visit  to   Heauen 

received  like  a  long-lost  government 
bond,  and  hug  Abraham  into  the 
bargain.  I  haven't  asked  you  any  of 
the  particulars,  Captain,  but  I  judge 
it  goes  without  saying — if  my  ex- 
perience is  worth  anything  —  that 
there  wasn't  much  of  a  hooraw  made 
over  you  when  you  arrived  —  now 
was  there?" 

"Don't  mention  it,  Sandy,"  says  I, 
coloring  up  a  little;  "  I  wouldn't  have 
had  the  family  see  it  for  any  amount 
you  are  a  mind  to  name.     Change  the 
subject,  Sandy,  change  the  subject." 
"  Well,  do  you  think  of  settling  in 
the  California  department  of  bliss?" 
"  I  don't  know.     I  wasn't  calculat- 
ing on  doing  anything  really  definite 
in  that  direction  till  the  family  come. 
I  thought  I  would  just  look  around, 
io5 


Extract  from  Captain 

meantime,  in  a  quiet  way,  and  make 
up  my  mind.  Besides,  I  know  a  good 
many  dead  people,  and  I  was  calculat- 
ing to  hunt  them  up  and  swap  a  little 
gossip  with  them  about  friends,  and 
old  times,  and  one  thing  or  another, 
and  ask  them  how  they  like  it  here, 
as  far  as  they  have  got.  I  reckon  my 
wife  will  want  to  camp  in  the  Califor- 
nia range,  though,  because  most  all 
her  departed  will  be  there,  and  she 
likes  to  be  with  folks  she  knows." 

"  Don't  you  let  her.  You  see  what 
the  Jersey  district  of  heaven  is,  for 
whites;  well,  the  Californian  district 
is  a  thousand  times  worse.  It  swarms 
with  a  mean  kind  of  leather-headed 
mud-colored  angels — and  your  near- 
est white  neighbor  is  likely  to  be  a 
million  miles  away.  What  a  man 
106 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heacen 

mostly  misses,  in  heaven,  is  company 
— company  of  his  own  sort  and  col- 
or and  language.  I  have  come  near 
settling  in  the  European  part  of  heav- 
en once  or  twice  on  that  account." 
"  Well,  why  didn't  you,  Sandy?" 
"Oh,  various  reasons.  For  one 
thing,  although  you  see  plenty  of 
whites  there,  you  can't  understand 
any  of  them,  hardly,  and  so  you  go 
about  as  hungry  for  talk  as  you  do 
here.  I  like  to  look  at  a  Russian  or  a 
German  or  an  Italian — I  even  like  to 
look  at  a  Frenchman  if  I  ever  have 
the  luck  to  catch  him  engaged  in  any- 
thing that  ain't  indelicate — but  look- 
ing don't  cure  the  hunger — what  you 
want  is  talk." 

"Well,  there's  England,  Sandy—' 
the  English  district  of  heaven." 
8  107 


Extract  from  Captain 

"Yes,  but  it  is  not  so  very  much 
better  than  this  end  of  the  heavenly- 
domain.  As  long  as  you  run  across 
Englishmen  born  this  side  of  three 
hundred  years  ago,  you  are  all  right; 
but  the  minute  you  get  back  of  Eliza- 
beth's time  the  language  begins  to  fog 
up,  and  the  further  back  you  go  the 
foggier  it  gets.  I  had  some  talk  with 
one  Langland  and  a  man  by  the  name 
of  Chaucer  —  old-time  poets  —  but  it 
was  no  use,  I  couldn't  quite  under- 
stand them,  and  they  couldn't  quite 
understand  me.  I  have  had  letters 
from  them  since,  but  it  is  such  broken 
English  I  can't  make  it  out.  Back  of 
those  men's  time  the  English  are  just 
simply  foreigners,  nothing  more,  noth- 
ing less;  they  talk  Danish,  German, 
Norman  French,  and  sometimes  a 
108 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

mixture  of  all  three;  back  of  them, 
they  talk  Latin,  and  ancient  British, 
Irish,  and  Gaelic;  and  then  back  of 
these  come  billions  and  billions  of 
pure  savages  that  talk  a  gibberish  that 
Satan  himself  couldn't  understand. 
The  fact  is,  where  you  strike  one  man 
in  the  English  settlements  that  you 
can  understand,  you  wade  through 
awful  swarms  that  talk  something  you 
can't  make  head  nor  tail  of.  You  see, 
every  country  on  earth  has  been  over- 
laid so  often,  in  the  course  of  a  billion 
years,  with  different  kinds  of  people 
and  different  sorts  of  languages,  that 
this  sort  of  mongrel  business  was 
bound  to  be  the  result  in  heaven." 

"Sandy,"  says  I,  "did  you  see  a 
good  many  of  the  great  people  his- 
tory tells  about?" 

109 


Extract  from   Captain 

"  Yes — plenty.  I  saw  kings  and  all 
sorts  of  distinguished  people." 

"  Do  the  kings  rank  just  as  they  did 
below?" 

"No;  a  body  can't  bring  his  rank 
up  here  with  him.  Divine  right  is  a 
good-enough  earthly  romance,  but  it 
don't  go,  here.  Kings  drop  down  to 
the  general  level  as  soon  as  they  reach 
the  realms  of  grace.  I  knew  Charles 
the  Second  very  well — one  of  the  most 
popular  comedians  in  the  English 
section — draws  first  rate.  There  are 
better,  of  course — people  that  were 
never  heard  of  on  earth — but  Charles 
is  making  a  very  good  reputation  in- 
deed, and  is  considered  a  rising  man. 
Richard  the  Lion-hearted  is  in  the 
prize-ring,  and  coming  into  consider- 
able favor.     Henry  the  Eighth  is  a 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

tragedian,  and  the  scenes  where  he 
kills  people  are  done  to  the  very  life. 
Henry  the  Sixth  keeps  a  religious- 
book  stand." 

"Did  you  ever  see  Napoleon, 
Sandy?" 

"  Often — sometimes  in  the  Corsican 
range,  sometimes  in  the  French.  He 
always  hunts  up  a  conspicuous  place, 
and  goes  frowning  around  with  his 
arms  folded  and  his  field-glass  under 
his  arm,  looking  as  grand,  gloomy  and 
peculiar  as  his  reputation  calls  for, 
and  very  much  bothered  because  he 
don't  stand  as  high,  here,  for  a  soldier, 
as  he  expected  to." 

"Why,  who  stands  higher?" 

"  Oh,  a  lot  of  people  we  never  heard 
of  before — the  shoemaker  and  horse- 
doctor  and  knife-grinder  kind,  you 


Extract   from  Captain 

know  —  clodhoppers  from  goodness 
knows  where,  that  never  handled  a 
sword  or  fired  a  shot  in  their  lives 
— but  the  soldiership  was  in  them, 
though  they  never  had  a  chance  to 
show  it.  But  here  they  take  their 
right  place,  and  Caesar  and  Napoleon 
and  Alexander  have  to  take  a  back 
seat.  The  greatest  military  genius 
our  world  ever  produced  was  a  brick- 
layer from  somewhere  back  of  Boston 
— died  during  the  Revolution — by  the 
name  of  Absalom  Jones.  Wherever 
he  goes,  crowds  flock  to  see  him.  You 
see,  everybody  knows  that  if  he  had 
had  a  chance  he  would  have  shown 
the  world  some  generalship  that 
would  have  made  all  generalship  be- 
fore look  like  child's  play  and  'prentice 
work.     But  he  never  got  a  chance; 

112 


Stormfield's  Visit  to   Heauen 

he  tried  heaps  of  times  to  enlist  as  a 
private,  but  he  had  lost  both  thumbs 
and  a  couple  of  front  teeth,  and  the 
recruiting  sergeant  wouldn't  pass  him. 
However,  as  I  say,  everybody  knows, 
now,  what  he  would  have  been,  and 
so  they  flock  by  the  million  to  get  a 
glimpse  of  him  whenever  they  hear  he 
is  going  to  be  anywhere.  Caesar,  and 
Hannibal,  and  Alexander,  and  Napo- 
leon are  all  on  his  staff,  and  ever  so 
many  more  great  generals;  but  the 
public  hardly  care  to  look  at  them 
when  he  is  around.  Boom!  There 
goes  another  salute.  The  barkeeper's 
off  quarantine  now." 

Sandy  and  I  put  on  our  things. 
Then  we  made  a  wish,  and  in  a  second 
we  were  at  the  reception-place.     We 
113 


Extract  from   Captain 

stood  on  the  edge  of  the  ocean  of  space, 
and  looked  out  over  the  dimness,  but 
couldn't  make  out  anything.  Close 
by  us  was  the  Grand  Stand — tier  on 
tier  of  dim  thrones  rising  up  toward 
the  zenith.  From  each  side  of  it 
spread  away  the  tiers  of  seats  for  the 
general  public.  They  spread  away 
for  leagues  and  leagues — you  couldn't 
see  the  ends.  They  were  empty  and 
still,  and  hadn't  a  cheerful  look,  but 
looked  dreary,  like  a  theatre  before 
anybody  comes — gas  turned  down. 
Sandy  says, — 

"We'll  sit  down  here  and  wait. 
We'll  see  the  head  of  the  procession 
come  in  sight  away  off  yonder  pretty 
soon,  now." 

Says  I, — 

"It's  pretty  lonesome,  Sandy;  I 
114 


Storm  ft  eld's  Visit  to  Heauen 

reckon  there's  a  hitch  somewheres. 
Nobody  but  just  you  and  me — it  ain't 
much  of  a  display  for  the  barkeeper." 

"Don't  you  fret,  it's  all  right. 
There'll  be  one  more  gun-fire — then 
you'll  see." 

In  a  little  while  we  noticed  a  sort 
of  a  lightish  flush,  away  off  on  the 
horizon. 

"Head  of  the  torchlight  proces- 
sion," says  Sandy. 

It  spread,  and  got  lighter  and 
brighter;  soon  it  had  a  strong  glare 
like  a  locomotive  headlight;  it  kept 
on  getting  brighter  and  brighter  till 
it  was  like  the  sun  peeping  above  the 
horizon-line  at  sea — the  big  red  rays 
shot  high  up  into  the  sky. 

"Keep  your  eyes  on  the  Grand 
Stand  and  the  miles  of  seats — sharp !' ' 
115 


Extract  from  Captain 

says  Sandy,  "and  listen  for  the  gun- 
fire." 

Just  then  it  burst  out,  "Boom- 
boom-boom!"  like  a  million  thunder- 
storms in  one,  and  made  the  whole 
heavens  rock.  Then  there  was  a 
sudden  and  awful  glare  of  light  all 
about  us,  and  in  that  very  instant 
every  one  of  the  millions  of  seats  was 
occupied,  and  as  far  as  you  could  see, 
in  both  directions,  was  just  a  solid 
pack  of  people,  and  the  place  was  all 
splendidly  lit  up!  It  was  enough  to 
take  a  body's  breath  away.  Sandy 
says, — 

"That  is  the  way  we  do  it  here. 
No  time  fooled  away;  nobody  strag- 
gling in  after  the  curtain's  up.  Wish- 
ing is  quicker  work  than  travelling. 
A  quarter  of  a  second  ago  these  folks 
116 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

were  millions  of  miles  from  here. 
When  they  heard  the  last  signal,  all 
they  had  to  do  was  to  wish,  and  here 
they  are." 

The  prodigious  choir  struck  up, — 

We  long  to  hear  thy  voice, 
To  see  thee  face  to  face. 

It  was  noble  music,  but  the  unedu- 
cated chipped  in  and  spoilt  it,  just  as 
the  congregations  used  to  do  on  earth. 

The  head  of  the  procession  began 
to  pass,  now,  and  it  was  a  wonderful 
sight.  It  swept  along,  thick  and  solid, 
five  hundred  thousand  angels  abreast, 
and  every  angel  carrying  a  torch  and 
singing — the  whirring  thunder  of  the 
wings  made  a  body's  head  ache.  You 
could  follow  the  line  of  the  procession 
back,  and  slanting  upward  into  the 
117 


Extract  from  Captain 

sky,  far  away  in  a  glittering  snaky 
rope,  till  it  was  only  a  faint  streak  in 
the  distance.  The  rush  went  on  and 
on,  for  a  long  time,  and  at  last,  sure 
enough,  along  comes  the  barkeeper, 
and  then  everybody  rose,  and  a  cheer 
went  up  that  made  the  heavens  shake, 
I  tell  you!  He  was  all  smiles,  and 
had  his  halo  tilted  over  one  ear  in  a 
cocky  way,  and  was  the  most  satisfied- 
looking  saint  I  ever  saw.  While  he 
marched  up  the  steps  of  the  Grand 
Stand,  the  choir  struck  up, — 

The  whole  wide  heaven  groans, 
And  waits  to  hear  that  voice." 

There    were    four    gorgeous    tents 

standing  side  by  side  in  the  place  of 

honor,  on  a  broad  railed  platform  in 

the  centre  of  the  Grand  Stand,  with  a 

118 


Stormfield's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

shining  guard  of  honor  round  about 
them.     The  tents  had  been  shut  up 
all    this    time.     As    the    barkeeper 
climbed  along  up,  bowing  and  smiling 
to  everybody,  and  at  last  got  to  the 
platform,  these  tents  were  jerked  up 
aloft  all  of  a  sudden,  and  we  saw  four 
noble  thrones  of  gold,  all  caked  with 
jewels,  and  in  the  two  middle  ones  sat 
old  white- whiskered  men,  and  in  the 
two    others    a    couple    of    the    most 
glorious  and  gaudy  giants,  with  plat- 
ter halos  and  beautiful  armor.     All 
the  millions  went  down  on  their  knees, 
and    stared,    and    looked    glad,    and 
burst  out  into  a  joyful  kind  of  mur- 
murs.    They  said, — 

"Two  archangels! — that   is  splen- 
did.    Who  can  the  others  be?" 
The  archangels  gave  the  barkeeper 
119 


Extract  from  Captain 

a  stiff  little  military  bow;  the  two  old 
men  rose;  one  of  them  said,  "Moses 
and  Esau  welcome  thee  I "  and  then 
all  the  four  vanished,  and  the  thrones 
were  empty. 

The  barkeeper  looked  a  little  dis- 
appointed, for  he  was  calculating  to 
hug  those  old  people,  I  judge;  but  it 
was  the  gladdest  and  proudest  mul- 
titude you  ever  saw — because  they 
had  seen  Moses  and  Esau.  Every- 
body was  saying,  "  Did  you  see  them? 
— I  did — Esau's  side  face  was  to  me, 
but  I  saw  Moses  full  in  the  face,  just 
as  plain  as  I  see  you  this  minute!" 

The  procession  took  up  the  bar- 
keeper and  moved  on  with  him  again, 
and  the  crowd  broke  up  and  scattered. 
As  we  went  along  home,  Sandy  said  it 
was  a  great  success,  and  the  barkeeper 
120 


Stormfreld's  Visit  to  Heaoen 

would  have  a  right  to  be  proud  of  it 
forever.     And  he  said  we  were  in  luck, 
too;  said  we  might  attend  receptions 
for  forty  thousand  years  to  come,  and 
not  have  a  chance  to  see  a  brace  of 
such    grand    moguls    as   Moses    and 
Esau.     We  found  afterwards  that  we 
had  come  near  seeing  another  patri- 
arch, and  likewise  a  genuine  prophet 
besides,  but  at  the  last  moment  they 
sent  regrets.     Sandy  said  there  would 
be  a  monument  put  up  there,  where 
Moses  and  Esau  had  stood,  with  the 
date  and  circumstances,  and  all  about 
the    whole   business,    and   travellers 
would  come  for  thousands  of  years 
and  gawk  at  it,  and  climb  over  it, 
and  scribble  their  names  on  it. 


THE   END. 


